


Old Man Daud: A Novel

by Atypicalgamergirl



Series: Old Man Daud [4]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games), LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works
Genre: Asexual Daud (Dishonored), Baleton, Cullero, Dunwall, Karnaca, Other, Potterstead, Saggunto, Serkonos, Tyvia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2018-10-16 04:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 86
Words: 195,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10564029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atypicalgamergirl/pseuds/Atypicalgamergirl
Summary: “Cursed Daud hides in the world and lives still.”For nearly twenty years, Daud has lived an uneventful life under an assumed name in the port town of Baleton, his killing days far behind him and his Void abilities dried to ash in his blood.On a cold night in 1855 during the Month of Rain, the smell of the Void unexpectedly fills the air and Daud’s quiet life is torn apart by a horrific attack at the hands of an incomprehensible enemy.Daud once again has the attention of the Outsider, but for reasons that he never could have predicted.Forced out of retirement, an aging Daud must face his greatest enemy yet – an enemy that threatens his life, his sanity and the very fabric of reality itself.





	1. Prologue

**Baleton, 1838, 28th Day, Month of Songs, just before midnight**

Tonight was the night she was finally going to meet her lover at the Lighthouse, and accept his ring. For so long she had waited for him to come for her. He was going to take her away from here, give a new life to her and her daughter and live together as a family. The promises he made were sweet, and she was young and full of hope even after so much suffering in her short life. She first saw him in her dreams a year ago, her dark-eyed handsome young man whispering of a life that she could only dream of. For a year she listened to him in her dreams, and over the course of the year, grew to love him and desire him beyond all logical comprehension. The previous night in her dreams, he told her he had a plan for her, a plan for her daughter and would meet her finally in person the following night to share those plans. ‘Be ready’ he whispered. ‘Midnight at the Lighthouse’ he whispered. She was excited about the prospect of being engaged, and could think of no more romantic location than at the top of the Lighthouse in the full moonlight. She packed her trunks earlier in the evening – wanting to be prepared to leave as soon as the sun rose the next morning. She was ready. She checked that her daughter was soundly asleep in their room at the ‘Flask, and crept out into the quiet streets of Baleton.

She walked down toward the bay, past the abandoned ruins of the old Traehorne castle and up toward the cliffs surrounding the bay. It was quiet, and she saw not a soul on her walk. The moon was bright enough to nearly cast shadows and she carefully made her way up the rough rocky path to the Gwynn lookout where her lover waited. She could see him up in the gallery of the Lighthouse – saw him there, waiting for her, dressed in all black. She was overcome with emotion and ran the rest of the way to the lighthouse, not caring about the jags of the stones nicking at her ankles and tearing her stockings. The timing was perfect and she was not worried about being caught – Wickie Baley was stone deaf, and the Lighthouse stood dark as it had for the past several nights, awaiting repair. She hurried up the service stairs looping up the outside of the lighthouse, around and around once more again until she reached the gallery. He was standing with his back to her, hands on the railing, looking out over the Bay. He turned and she looked into his strange black eyes and threw herself into his arms. For a second, she wondered if she was still dreaming – she jumped out into nothing, a darkness, and seemed to float there for moment and then the wind was screaming up at her as she fell, and fell, and fell. She broke apart on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, her insides uncoiling and spilling out in all directions. From a vague place she saw the swells of the black water come in and take her up piece by piece, wave by wave until there was nothing of her left across the rocks. She sensed the melting of her flesh from bone, her long red hair floating away like fronds of some strange sea flora, the picking and pressure of being fed on by crabs, by hagfish - her soft parts pried and sucked from every corner of her bones. Much later, from a dark timeless place she sensed the last of her softness picked away and the relentless undercurrents sending the pieces of her bones tumbling slowly over the edge into of the deepest part of the sea, the remains of the nicked and hollowed out bones of her sifted into the inky black spaces between the teeth of a huge, silent and terrifying Deep One, and the last pieces of her were gone forever and she was nothing now but a broken piece of disjointed memories deep in the Void.

**************

**1849 16th Day, Month of Rain - In a place outside of time**

In the darkness of an old forgotten island in the Void, fat oily black tendrils of Corruption swirled and writhed around the ankles of the quiet hooded figures standing around a large sacrificial slab looking on for all eternity at the place where the Outsider was born at the point of a bronze twin-blade in a gush of blood from a nameless boy’s throat more than 4000 years ago. The tendrils writhed and collapsed in on themselves, stretching and coiling and crawling toward the slab, heavily bloated with the poisonous discarded remnants of memories and moments it consumed and absorbed on its journey toward this ancient decaying place. It gained momentum and form at the end – the tendrils drawing up into itself, giving a vaguely humanoid featureless form to what was but a moment ago a loosely-connected collection of black motes and swirls. The Corruption heaved itself onto the slab with a wet flop, sweating out fluid a color that no human eye could begin comprehend. Its mindless purpose met at last, it lay upon the slab and pulsed rhythmically as its burden coalesced and took form from within itself. The black form violently clenched in upon itself, tore itself open from the inside and a tiny filthy maggot was suddenly borne into existence, obscenely wet and glistening, crawling from the seeping wet tear in the Corruption. The maggot humped blindly through the oily fluids along the slab on which it was spat out into existence, growing larger with each passing moment, even as its host collapsed in on itself and faded from existence. The pale fat worm writhed as if in pain from its rapid growth in the cold formless dark and decay, squirming and stretching until a split formed, spilling a thick black ichor. From this malformed torn hole, the rapidly growing fetal figure gurgled a single gravelly syllable through the noxious bubbling fluid… “Daud”, so quietly even the Outsider did not hear or even sense it.


	2. Part 1: Daud

**Part 1: Daud**

**Baleton - 1855, the 16th day of the Month of Rain, late evening**

Daud was on edge this night as he looked out over the quiet streets of Baleton, the silence broken only occasionally by the half-tune whistling of the Town Watch. The night already seemed longer than allowed for the hours of dark. He was perched on the sill of an open window letting the raw damp cold* air seep into the warmth of his room. There was a faint familiar smell in the air that tickled around his brain and drove away the comfortable perfume of heat-shimmered woodsmoke from his old stove. It was not the astringent sting of the bitter pressed hemlock* that tended to permeate the city when the wind was right, but the smell of cold sterile dust, the copper stink of dried blood and a dark tinge of something his brain refused to identify but recognized from long ago. It had been years, nearly two decades since he had last breathed in the dead metallic air of the Void, and yet – here in this endless dark night it haunted him more strongly than he could remember.

None here in this city far from Dunwall could imagine the dark magic of that time, none could imagine the Void. He had reached out with his mind in this city over the years and had found nothing, no charms or runes – no shrines, no arcane witch scribbles in abandoned buildings or lush overgrown garden walls and he liked it that way. He had wondered more than once if it had something to do with the distinct lack of whale-oil use in Baleton. The dependence on it had dropped sharply in the past decade or so, and it hadn’t been used much here to begin with. Baleton seemed ahead of the rest of the Isles when it came to other sources of energy.

He had made the connection between whales and the Void years ago, during his odd encounter with a dying whale at the Rothwild Slaughterhouse. He had seen whales in the Void before, but it wasn’t until he was experiencing the slow slaughter and suffering of one at Rothwild’s that he was able to finally feel the connection. Even Billie felt it, through her bond with Daud. It was unlike her to empathize the way she had when she suggested putting the whale out of its misery – they were there to get information, not save whales. Something drew him to the whale though, something strong enough to sidetrack him from his target. He had never been so close to a living whale before. He had seen them, yes – and on occasion had been aboard ships when they pulled them in but he had never been so close to one suffering like this: trussed, deeply punctured and milked of its very essence while still alive. The pain and suffering of the creature seemed to permeate the very air and render it heavy and charged. Time seemed to warp and slow slightly when he got close enough to touch it, and the dark smell of shit, blood, and acrid adrenaline became a nearly physical thing as it surrounded Daud. Gravity itself seemed to shift and the air tinged with a violet twilight hue when he reached his hand out in a daze and touched the whale. His mark throbbed and burned and what he felt was some unnamable alien emotion distinctly of the Void, and that is when he made the connection. When he pulled the switch and the whale finally died, he felt the ethereal sinew linking the whale with its Void counterpart snap and from somewhere far off sensed something like the rapidly fading relief he knew on some level that the whale in front of him finally felt in its last moments.

Once the whale was dead and the link broken, he was able to pry out its eye with little remorse and deliver it to damnable purpose: cooking up a rune from a recipe old Granny Rags had been kind enough to leave behind for him to find. He doubted it was a coincidence. In Dunwall, there were no coincidences. That rune joined the many others he had collected over the years. He still had that one, in fact. He could tell which one it was from a slight flaw on the back that looked very much like the eye of the whale which brought it into existence. That rune, and the others lay dormant now in his Whaler trunk.

By the time he got to Baleton, it had been nearly two years since he had felt the pulse of a charm or a rune, a long time since he could see the faint fiery outlines of his mark pulsing and glowing in the nearness of them, but that did not stop him from looking just to be sure: breaking into abandoned places late at night, watching for signs of so-called heresy and in Baleton found none. The city’s inhabitants seemed largely indifferent to the arcane – either studying it or participating in it, to the point where even the Brothers from the Abbey only visited a few times a year and then only to look at unearthed artifacts from the Wilds that he reckoned were older even than the Outsider. The only unholy items that he knew of here in Baleton were the runes and charms, many of them corrupted - all of them quiet and dark, which he had collected in his travels and kept locked away in a safe place. So why was he sensing the Void now? He gripped his left hand into a fist, pulling the age-loose skin taut. Though he bandaged his left hand daily out of habit, his mark was barely visible now, not much more than a scar fading to memory. Cursed to walk as a man old before his time in a purgatory of Void and Not-Void, not released to the natural timeline of life yet not released to the Void either.

He had made his choice, and had all these years kept true to it. Through sheer will he refused the gifts of the mark, and with time had become but as half of the one of eight to bear the mark and his time since had been quiet and bloodless, wandering from port to shore to city to wilderness – anonymous and ignored as aging men in old shabby clothes generally are. It hadn’t been easy.

Sometimes he had been a beggar – culling information along with coin, others a deckhand. It was not easy, particularly with his choice not to call on his abilities. He hadn’t lost any fights, but he didn’t exactly win any either. His physical capabilities had always been beyond those of others, and he could hold his own with his fists. He found that a good many other people he met along his travels could, too.

There were times when he was sitting in rags and filth on a city street, acting as a beggar and was left wiping off a gob of hot phlegm that had been spat in his face, and even though his vision clouded red with thoughts of blood and murder, still he did not draw blood. Many days and nights he spent on rooftops and in alleys of the various cities and villages of the Isles, creeping in darkness and sometimes walking free in light scoping out the places he chose to call home for the moment, unsure of what, if anything he was looking for. Many times he thought he had been recognized but the tales of the Assassin Daud had faded slowly over time and distance, until only the most fervent of fans and conspiracy theorists cared to research his past and his crimes.

Only a very few of those who dedicated their time to learning more about Daud knew of his time at the Academy of Natural Philosophy outside of rumor and speculation. He was certain that people would be astonished to know that he studied primarily experimental botany, though if they knew him well and knew about his mother they would not be nearly as surprised. He figured Anton Sokolov remembered his being there, as brief as his term was – particularly considering the interesting and disturbing terms on which Daud was rusticated from the Academy in late 1819. Not long after that event, he found the Outsider – or rather, the Outsider found him. The rest became legend.

As much as he tried to leave his life as Assassin Daud behind him, shreds of his life and memories clung to him and followed him wherever he went. It would seem that this was his curse, to carry the rotting stinking corpse of his life as Assassin Daud along wherever he went, never to be truly free of it. Some parts he held on to deliberately, others he actively tried to force from his life. His blade, the blade that took Jessamine Kaldwin’s life refused to leave his side either by chance or by design.

His blade had followed him from the time he laid it at Jessamine’s tomb. He had walked away, wounds from his last duel with Corvo still fresh and weeping through his filthy bandages and walked in a daze straight to the docks, not caring if anyone saw him and stowed away on a ship without knowing where it was going. He sailed from Dunwall thinking he had left his cursed life behind him. He was not really surprised when the ship docked at Cullero in Serknos – he had become used to the tangled bag of snakes that seemed to define his life. Since he had originally planned to go there anyway, he decided to stay for a while and see where his feet took him. He rarely strayed further south than Saggunto and spent some time there living in the shadows and lurking in the darkness, listening for secrets and exploring places long forgotten and others remembered fondly – others not, like that bitch Lilika and her corrupt bonecharms. He was reminded of her swindle daily when his tongue wandered into the still-sore blackened holes in his jaw where three of his teeth used to be. He was afraid at first that Serkonos would be no better than Dunwall but he was relieved to find in Serkonos no more than the usual rot or corruption that tends to lie at any given city’s heart. He credited the benign leadership of Theodanis Abele for the relative stability of Serkonos – even through the various tragedies in his life, he still continued a fair and positive path for his people.

It took a little less than a month for his blade to find him. He was on a rare excursion to Karnaca, keeping especially close to the shadows as he was certain that he would be recognized nearly instantly. He had been up on the roof of a building looking out over the city – a morbid curiosity had him searching for the balcony where he had sent Duchess Callas Abele to her death years ago, hired to assassinate her by none other than her own bastard of a son Luca. So much for a mother’s love. She went so easily, and the job went perfectly with no one none the wiser that it hadn’t been an accident. From his hidden location he had sent out a Pull, and as she was yanked over the edge of the balcony, he simply withdrew the Pull. He could see (and hear from the sharp crack of her skull) that her death was instant and painless.

He thought he had spotted the balcony and leaned forward in a crouch to focus a little more closely from a slightly different angle. He felt, more than heard - the presence behind him. He spun up from a crouch, and in the same motion shot the figure with a sleep dart. He approached the slumped figure – a so-called Howler, evidently and he felt a cold anger as he saw she was carrying his own blade. He should have figured it would have ended up on the black market eventually but he hadn’t expected it so soon. He left her there, took his cursed blade and made plans to once again leave – Jessamine’s blood may have followed him here by chance but he was determined it would not by fate. He knew he could not stay in Serkonos. There was nothing here for him now.

The next ship he boarded out of Karnaca was a freighter bound for the north, via a westward course around Gristol. He decided to take only himself and the clothes on his back, and perhaps one other thing. He had already locked and sealed his belongings and his considerable savings in his water-tight Whaler trunk, and sunk it off the Karnacan coast in a small hidden cove. Except for the blade. That he brought with him. He hired himself out to the freighter in exchange for board, and so began his life as a laborer. He cut down his once-thick hair unevenly short and stubbly, and his beard was growing in sparse and patchy but sufficient to cover some of his scarring, and no one recognized him – or if they did, they made no mention of it. He hid his blade well, and waited until a moonless night to creep up on deck and throw it as far as he could off the deck of the ship sinking it into the sea somewhere far west of Potterstead and figured it was done and gone forever.

The freighter landed in the small port of Baleton - the city of poison, on the 28th day of the Month of Songs, 1838. He decided to stay and make it his home for the time. He found out quickly that the safest place to live while learning the town was the Wilds outside the town limits. He built a small but serviceable shelter and lived among the strange people there on what he could scavenge while building a savings. Every day he bandaged over his mark, and willed himself daily to eschew the powers that he once swore he would continue to use. He found these days that he didn’t really care about enforcing his will on the world, so much as he cared about enforcing it upon himself. He didn’t feel his powers leaving him, so much as he was able to simply shove them aside in his mind and with time he was able to not think of them at all.

Within a few years Daud truly was unrecognizable and he no longer furtively searched faces for signs of familiarity – he first worked the docks and moved on to labor in the Hemlock fields for honest coin. The hard outdoor work shaped him from the whip thin sallow-skinned agile assassin to a grizzled muscular hired hand. His shoulders and arms filled out, tanned darker and while the lines and scars in his face were deeper and there was no evident loss of ability or strength, and his mind no less sharp for approaching his early sixties on such lean living. He looked older than his years, but rarely if ever felt the burden of those years. He wondered often if the Outsider was behind this curse of seemingly ageless aging. In the time since he had left Dunwall, he did not find himself sick or injured through his years of hard nomadic living in the outer Wilds of Baleton. He did not suffer from any aches and pains of older men. He wondered if he simply could not die and would spend all eternity wandering in an older and older body, but did not care to test this theory either through offensive or defensive means.

Later, much later - long after the mark had faded to seeming uselessness and he had amassed a sizeable savings in Baleton, he returned to Karnaca to retrieve his sunken supplies and arranged to have them shipped to Baleton. It was not as easy to find them when he could no longer sense the charms and runes pulsing to draw him closer to their hiding place. A few weeks later he arrived back into the Port of Baleton with his Whaler trunk, and began the next part of his life. He spent the next fifteen years building a place for himself in the world in the city of poison.

His life currently was quiet and mundane. He wore his hair shorn short and gray approaching white, and a thick short gray beard covered much of his scarring. He wore glasses that he did not need to soften and hide the seemingly permanent scowl of his brows. Gone from his everyday life were the high sea and Whaler gear and the sturdy leathers collected over the years – these he kept locked in his Whaler trunk, and he was unsure if they would even fit now. He could not imagine himself wearing any of that stuff anymore outside of his boots, but was unable to let any of it go. Gone even was his name, as he had not used it nor heard it so much as uttered in nearly twenty years – the name Herne Merrock had been his for so long now that ‘Daud’ seemed like a distant relative, someone he used to know. These days he wore clean but loose shabby clothes befitting those of the shopkeeper of the Stridside Curious Goods shop.

In 1844, he bought his shop outright from the city with his false name but a believable history and pedigree from a carefully crafted false lineage and family name that anyone would think that they had heard of before and would pretend to recognize. In less than a year he had put together a business plan and renovated and remodeled the shop accordingly. In 1845, he opened his doors for business. He was admired as an honest, hardworking citizen who had worked his way up from nothing – and the town was more than happy to sell property to him.

Most every morning, Daud made his way across the town center over to his store. He lived nearly directly across the way from it on the top two floors of Stridside Bldg #4, and it was but a short walk over. His shop shared that side of the street with a line of several other shops and he knows the various shop owners fairly well. They would nod hellos each morning as they were opening for business, and sometimes trade a little idle gossip.

The Stridside Curious Goods store was a large two-story building with a basement. The top floor had been the living area of the previous tenant. Daud had lived up there for a time when he first opened the shop until he bought his home across the street in 1848. These days Daud used it as his office.

In the business hours, Daud bought and sold vintage wares and belongings from surrounding cities – various estate sales and such. He sold the things he had collected in various cities and hideaways – odd trinkets collected on his travels through the Isles and Pandyssia. He inventoried his stock, kept appointments with clients for estate sale acquisitions for his inventory, helped the various tourists and other walk-in customers find a trinket and often explain its significance. He had come to enjoy this.

In between customers, when he had some down time, Daud enjoyed reading various interesting books that had come through his store – there was no end the types of books that he had seen. Everything from erotica to folk tales. He did not have the capacity to read for long periods of time – never did, but enjoyed passing time with a chapter or two here and there.

There was an audiograph machine in his store that he used to play music for his customers and enjoyed a brisk sale of the different types of music and poetry from all over the Isles that he had to offer. After-hours he listened to the audiographs he kept for himself – various correspondence, some anonymous and mundane – others not so much. He would not sell those kind of personal audiographs, but he did collect and listen to them on his own. He got a fair amount of old audiographs coming into his shop. Some had baffled him, others he burned out of respect after listening. Sometimes he would find simple beautiful music and sometimes just plain oddities.

Once he acquired some old music audiographs that were purported to have come from an eccentric Serkonan inventor’s collection – it was of a strange sort of music – a wet-sounding wailing and wheezing metallic cacophony that he reckoned was worse than any Overseer’s music box that he had ever had the displeasure of hearing. He had never been brought to tears by music before, but this came close – and not in a good way. These he kept from sale though for now – anything with Kirin Jindosh’s name on it was becoming ever higher in value since his curious retirement – even something as hard to listen to as these.

At the end of each business day, Daud inventoried his stock, balanced his till and prepared his daily financial reports. He would set aside a cut from each day’s profit for property taxes, and had never failed to make his payments to the council on time. Taxes were both low and fair in Baleton, and he had never had reason to complain. In the evenings, he closed up his shop but tended to linger for a few hours after.

Most evenings after closing up, Daud would spend time up in his office, sipping his favorite Orbon rum from an old chipped City Watch mug and tapping away at his typewriter, working on various correspondence. He was the first student to enroll in the Mechanical Orthography course at the Baleton Common School. He bought one of the six typewriters that had been gifted to the school by Empress Emily Kaldwin, and has ever since typed all of his correspondence. He found typing convenient for a number of reasons, anonymity being chief among them.

His original intent was to have a legitimate-looking business from which he could run and monitor his network of ‘eyes and ears’ he had in his employ throughout the Isles. None of them suspect who they really work for, and they are all under the impression that the close attention they pay has entirely to do with keeping tabs on when and where to make the most lucrative acquisitions. Among those acquisitions are anything that could be found out about the infamous Assassin Daud – one more person looking for the Assassin Daud didn’t raise a single suspicion amongst his network.

One of them specifically tracked Meagan Foster – he had asked to have her monitored, and paid well for each packet of dispatches on her whereabouts and travel. His contact was under the impression that she was a ruthless competitor with a gift for sussing out hard-to-find items and had the best chance of finding anything related to the Assassin Daud. He often thought of what he would do or say when Lurk finally found him. He knew that she had managed to trace his last days in Dunwall. She had covered her bases pretty well. Word was that she had made contact with Lizzy Stride, and that she was putting out feelers on Slackjaw at the Brigmore Manor. He knew she wouldn’t find anything at Brigmore, or whatever Slackjaw was calling it now – he forgot, and besides – it would really always be known as the Brigmore Manor. There was little enough left of it when he was last there, and it was his understanding that the remodel was almost entirely from the ground up. He gave her credit for trying though.

Out of the people actively searching for him: only a couple had any real chance of finding him. Corvo was looking for him – he had a feeling he knew why, but it was a conversation he didn’t intend to have with him. He didn’t want or need to hear anything Corvo had to say to him. Lurk eventually would find him. He knew that. He _felt_ it. The other, the Tyvian ‘freedman’ Zhukov had been close, but the trail went cold on him a few years back after the last of the Whalers scattered. Daud was no longer worried about Zhukov. If anyone would know the particulars of what had been left of the Whalers or Zhukov, it was his former, and perhaps second-best Whaler Thomas.

Thomas’s search for Daud – any hint at all of Daud was relentless after he left the Whalers, rivaling even Lurk’s obsession. This made him the most valuable of Daud’s network of eyes and ears. If only Thomas knew who he was working for. In all the years he had been sending dispatches to Mr. Merrock, he never once considered that it may be the very person he had made it his life’s work to find. Thomas wasn’t hard for Daud to find, and even easier to hire – all it took was a ‘chance’ conversation at a pub between one of Daud’s network and Thomas. The promise of getting paid well to entertain his obsession was all it took.

When his ‘other’ business was slow and was in-between dispatches, Daud spent time in his shop’s basement. He kept his large walk-in lead-lined safe down in his basement – it had a very-well designed locking mechanism. He had cracked enough safes in his lifetime to know exactly how to prevent it, primarily by not writing the combination down anywhere. He still chuckled over how easy some of the safes had been to get into, simply because a combination had been written on a wall nearby, or a notebook, or in a letter. No, this safe combination existed only in his head, and good luck cracking the lock – not possible. Daud had seen to that.

He kept his sealed Whaler trunk in the large safe in the basement, along with other important documents and leftovers from his life as Daud. He kept here also his Log book, these days holding not just his thoughts – but many coded dispatches over the years sent to him by hired eyes and ears throughout the Isles. While Daud had faded to legend for many of those in his past – they were all fresh in Daud’s mind in the present. He liked keeping tabs on his past, if for no other reason than to see how many may be keeping tabs on the Assassin.

His dispatches varied in content. Among some of the more interesting things he had been able to find out were bits of gossip not really pertaining to himself or his interests, but he found them interesting nonetheless. He knew all about the despicable Pendleton twins being miraculously ‘found’ in 1840, and by whom. He also knew how they were lost in the first place. He knew exactly who Azariah Fillmore was, and found it deeply interesting and equally disturbing how deeply infiltrated Slackjaw had gotten himself in with one of the Pendleton girls. He was all but raising the newest Pendleton himself, no doubt running the long game of taking over the Pendleton holdings. How either of what was left of Custis and Morgan managed to spawn a bastard with Slackjaw’s hired whore Betty was beyond Daud’s understanding, but one of them did. That Slackjaw was the owner of the old Brigmore Manor was also not lost on Daud. The snakes never stop twisting in that old bag, it seems.

The other Pendleton girl? Lived right here in Baleton, married to a Hatter from Dunwall and raising a son with him, running the draper shop here in town. After one of their twins died, word got around that ‘Da Wilde had plans to send the other to Draper’s Ward as an ‘apprentice’. Yes, old ‘Da Wilde was still very much a Hatter. Daud recognized the Hatter Wilde, and if the Hatter Wilde were to recognize him – he’d have recognized him from Daud’s last visit with old Mortimer Hat. He had practiced great restraint not to gut this particular ginger Hatter who had mouthed off to him. “Get where you’re going little man” said with a nonchalance that infuriated him to this day. If he had it to do over, that Hatter would have died choking on one of his own dismembered body parts. As for those last days in Drapers Ward, it had been a while, but to this day Daud was still haunted by the sight of old Mortimer Hat hooked up to the machines much in the way whales were hooked up at the refinery – not dead, but by no means living either. Not really. After seeing that, he could understand why Lizzy Stride wouldn’t go see him. Even if there was no love lost, no one wants to see their father in that way.

He doubted the Pendleton girl knew she married a Hatter and birthed another, and moreover didn’t care if she knew or not. The Pendletons never bothered to really see what was right in front of them, particularly if it required looking down into the gutter. And now this new generation of them would be ruling the gutter from opposite sides of the streets. Hell, they might even end up killing one another. It was a hell of a masterpiece, worthy of the Outsider himself. He wondered more than a few times if the Outsider did, in fact, have his cold hands tangled up in this one and if there were a couple of boys out there dreaming those dark dreams even now.

About once or twice a month, he would head down to his basement after hours and pour himself an especially stiff Orbon rum – usually a double if not a triple, light up a thick cigarette, unseal his trunk and pull out his assassin gear – cleaning and oiling his wristbow, scrubbing and polishing leather and buckles, shaking and brushing out the old clothes and wiping down the old Whaler mask, in preparation for… what?

It had been a while now since the mask found him. Daud had to keep a very straight face when his contact brought him ‘a genuine Whaler mask’ that he had acquired. Daud paid him well for it. It was indeed one of his Whaler’s masks – Billie’s in fact. He didn’t even need to look at that spot inside where she had scratched a small interconnected D and a B into the rough leather. She had loved Deidre, and he often wondered what it was like to love someone in that way.

He would hold her mask in his hands, looking into the cloudy and cracked lenses, and see not the Assassin Daud, but only the fractured image an old man reflected back at him. Sometimes he would bring his old red coat to his face and inhale deeply, remembering. His gear carried – and would always carry, the slight scent of copper, rot and mildew – the smell of his time in Flooded District – long-faded, but still discernable. What compelled him to hang on to the long-gone Assassin? What compelled the Assassin to hang on to him? Whatever the case, maintaining his gear was a long-held habit and he found it calming. He would turn the quiet bonecharms and runes over and over in his hands, absently tracing the various grooves, metal fittings and wires - wondering if this would be the time his mark awakened and the charms would begin to sing again, but so far it had not.

There was a small hidden room tucked away under the basement stairs. The door to the room was evidently designed to be indistinguishable from the rest of the wall. He found it by accident when he stumbled against one of the walls while moving some of the previous owner’s clutter out of the basement. The hollow _thunk_ his head made on the wall told him that there was more to this basement than he thought. The little room was not on the floorplan that he had for his shop, but there was no evidence that it hadn’t always been there – it was as old as the building itself. He had never figured what its original intent was as it was empty when he finally broke into it, but Daud had repurposed it into a small but well-functioning lab with which to work on his various experiments. It had just the right amount of room for that.

There was an odd conjunction to the right of the small room where the downward slope of the stairwell met the slightly inward leaning wall where the stairs took a turn. He tended to avoid looking at the uncomfortable angle where the stairs and wall met, but he wasn’t exactly sure why – his eyes didn’t seem to want to linger there on the wrongness of it. Any time he put thought to it, his brain curved and dodged the thoughts, slipping them away into other distractions. It was a mystery that he simply refused to consider consciously or otherwise. He built his lab on the left side of the room such that he kept his back comfortably to the right side of the room.

Daud liked to tinker in the small lab and practiced the art of perfecting the exotic poisons that he first learned to make from watching his mother, and later refined through his studies of experimental botany and selective plant breeding at the Academy. His current pet project was to cross species of various poisonous plants until he could find a way to pinpoint and pass a specific trait naturally and indiscriminately through any species of plant regardless of classification. His natural, albeit unusual, immunity to poisons of any type allowed him a much greater scope of experimentation than the average person would be able to carry out. Some of his poisons were fatal, and others were not. Some would kill with a mere touch to the skin, others were not fatal, but were more specialized and refined to target and disable specific systems in the body. His latest one was not fatal but could wipe swaths of memory permanently. He could think of a few times where this would have come in handy in his Assassin days. When he was crossing and testing his poison crossbreeds he was most at peace. He enjoyed creating the potential for new paths for life, removing hindrances and opening new doors where doors would not naturally be. In this way, and no longer through murder, he enforced his will over life, and was satisfied.

When he managed to perfect the chemical purity of a poison, he corked it in a small vial and added it to his collection. He had many cases, filled with rows of neatly labeled and dated vials. He hadn’t quite decided what to do with them, but planned to one day send samples of them to the Academy along with his notes and findings under his assumed name, or course – though he suspected that if Sokolov were still there, he’d know or at least suspect who it really was, given Daud’s tenure and work at the Academy.

Perhaps his work would merit a scholarly article, or some other similar intellectual accomplishment. It would be a work he would truly be proud of. He could think of worse hobbies. And such was his life as the Stridside Curious Goods shopkeeper – no customer none the wiser that the quiet, but oddly rough-spoken bespectacled man who handed them the unusual carved figure or wildly-pigmented painting or old dusty book had spilled the blood of an Empress and set into motion a chain of unimaginable events.

He owned outright the two top floors of Stridside Bldg. #4. across the street from his shop in the town’s center overlooking the great lighted fountain that commemorated some hero or other, and kept it as a modest home. He had a hired girl living in that had the gift of doing much and asking little – she cleaned and cooked and took care of day to day tasks with no question about how a rough edge shopkeeper like himself could maintain two floors of a decent building, much less hire out some live-in help. Lily was quiet, and with no apparent last name and a scant history – she made the perfect hire for what he needed. She helped create the illusion of a normal life, and for that he was grateful. He often imagined how her life would have turned out had she never crossed his path. Would she be living still? Hard to say. The life of a ‘Rat tended to end on the early side even under the best of circumstances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Hemlock processing – pungent (citrus + evergreen) and rank with dirt and rot undertones (parsnips, root vegetables), sharp and astringent
> 
> * Baleton climate: primarily overcast, raining or drizzling (moreso than Dunwall), cool much of the year (40F-60F degrees) if not cold (5F to 30F degrees), summer is short and mild, sometimes getting warm (as much as 60F-77F degrees, which Daud would find very warm having grown accustomed to the climate)


	3. Chapter 3

Baleton boasted but one ‘gang’ calling themselves the Wharfe Rats. The members were for the most part quite young, many of them children who had found themselves orphaned by parents “accidently” leaving them behind after a family trip to Baleton, bastard children, strange orphaned children wandering in from the Wilds outside of the town limits, and so on. They were run by Hilliard Humphreys, a local low-life who had a network of lackeys around the Isles who ran a variety of scams – blackmail chiefly. The most common scam they would run was to soap-scrub one of their feral youth, and dress the child up prettily in the fashion of the higher classes. They would send the child out with their ‘father’ equally gotten up as a well-to-do gent to the Port docks in the guise of tourists. The ‘father’ would find a mark – usually an older upper class tourist gent and send his ‘child’ to go inquire of the mark a coin, or seemingly innocent conversation. Once the ‘child’ had established a connection, the ‘child’ would begin to wail and scream, of course bringing running his ‘father’. The ‘child’ would then tell the ‘father’ loudly some of the most ear-blistering perversions that the said ‘gent’ offered him, and the ‘father’ would then extort money from the embarrassed and terrified stranger, which was always given frantically and freely. Empress Emily Kaldwin had, over the recent years enacted strict laws which protected children and the servant class from exploitation, sexual or otherwise, and the punishment was swift and severe. Gone were the days of buying children for nefarious means, or forcing house-help into sexual situations. This, of course made it much, much easier for low-lifes to extort and blackmail.

They tried this with Daud not long after he established Stridside Curious Goods. He was approached outside of his store one morning when he was sweeping the walk in front of his shop. He listened to the child looking up at him with large innocent eyes, laid his hands gently on the boy’s shoulders, turning him gently away and then kicked the boy so hard in the pants that he was picking himself up out of the street from a good ten feet away. The boy jumped up and ran away and Daud could hear his angry wailing from the next set of shops down from his. When the ‘father’ came running to confront Daud in front of his store, his words died on his lips – it only took one second of eye contact to loosen the ‘Rat’s bowels with fear, and they rarely bothered Daud again. Of course, the younger cutpurses and thieves would try to steal from him to this day, but never a one tried it twice. He knew the blackmail business well but wanted no part of it. He kept a close eye out on the ‘Rats and Hilliard Humphreys. He was not overly concerned. He had met H.H. once when H.H. had paid him a visit at his store not long after he opened and H.H. started working some lies on him. H.H. had no idea that Daud knew exactly who he was, and it took not much more than a dead silent staredown through the Assassin’s eyes to slow H.H.’s bullshit to a stammer and then finally silence. H.H. had simply turned and walked away and Daud had yet to cross paths with him again - in person anyway.

The idea of H.H. going up against someone like Lizzy Stride or Slackjaw in their prime, much less even himself now as an old man made him chuckle. Lurk would have toyed with him like a child’s plaything before turning him to bloody ribbons. Shit, even the weakest and greenest of the Whalers that he remembered – Fleet, her name was – could have taken him out even without the powers he had given her. No, H.H. was nowhere close to being a threat.

He had picked Lily up out of that rough band of miscreants two years ago – almost certainly a long-dead whore’s whelp: dirty, half-grown ‘Rat whom he caught trying to clumsily cut his light pouch from his belt as he was opening his shop early in the dark of one especially cold morning. He could still see the burning hate and defiance in those feral eyes as he turned, catching her and gripped her too-thin upper arm roughly, nearly breaking it. As clumsy and rough as this girl was - there was something there, something about her way that reminded him very much of Billie Lurk. While he twisted up her arm pretty good before roughly shaking her off to the ground, he did not further harm her and instead turned and continued to open his shop as usual, not giving even a single glance back at her. It was not the first Wharfe Rat he had either sent sprawling with swift kick in the pants, or a solid twist to the ground nor would it be the last, he figured.

That evening as he closed up his shop, he knew she would follow. He did not know how he knew, but something had passed in their eyes which assured him that she would. Just like another girl in another time. Déjà vu and coincidences did not exist for Daud – he chalked this up to the bag of snakes, the never ending tangle of fate he seemed to find himself in all of his life. He made sure she was not aware that he knew she was following him for two days, and casing his home. Indeed, within two nights of that incident, Daud sensed it was time and shut off every light in his home and sat quietly in the darkness of his room – he sat in a chair facing the window in the moonlight silent and still. He waited in complete silence and heard what he knew that he would: the faint clicks and pops of tumblers being picked at the rear door on the back balcony of the floor below. He closed his eyes and focused, willing any power left in him toward her silently beckoning her to come in and come closer. He listened to her careful attempt to sneak unnoticed through his home, picturing her in every place she hesitated and rifled through his meager and largely worthless things. As much as she would sift and turn, she would never find the Assassin Daud or his things but she would surely find him. _That’s it, come a little closer_ – sending his thoughts into the Void in his mind, listening closely in the dark for a reply – letting his instincts take over.

There were no creaks or squeaks in the floor or hinges by design, but he could still hear her coming up the hall toward his room. Her muffled steps hesitated at his door, and she tried the knob so silently that most people would not have heard the catch of the lock as she gently turned the knob. In seconds, he heard the liquid snick of the lock being picked and the door swung silently open. He did not turn or acknowledge her even as he felt her stop and stiffen, straight razor ready in her hand as she saw him sitting there. She misjudged, and took a step toward him. In his mind, he heard a whisper from the Void as if from very far away, and he knew in that moment that her name was Lily, and the name was out of his mouth before his brain had fully registered it… “Lily.” He stood and turned toward her then with the moonlight at his back and the look in her eyes told him what he needed to know. She took one look into the dark green glint of his eyes, and lowered and then folded the straight razor, and tucked it back into her ankle sheath. He knew for sure now that she would neither harm him, nor would leave his side.

As much as he was reminded of Billie (or Meagan as she was calling herself now according to his dispatches), he no longer had need of a protégé, but knew somehow that he needed to keep this one close and at his back as anything but an enemy. She was young, but something unsettling squirmed and turned over in his mind when he looked at her – dirt caked, stinking and half-shaved greasy headed defiance. Something was old about her – not merely old, but _Old_ and something was potentially dangerous but he couldn’t grasp it. He knew better than to let her go. So, he took her in and offered her a job and moreover something he knew was worth its weight in coin: safety and anonymity.

Of all the traits she lacked over Billie, the most welcome absence was that fervent and unrelenting curiosity that now would unsettle rather than intrigue him, had Lily possessed it. She never once questioned how he knew her name those years ago. It was slow in the coming, but Lily grew to understand that a steady good salary, respect and a place largely to herself outweighed the need to search for things in Daud’s home to steal and pawn. She stopped sneaking out, and began to grow into herself. As she grew her hair, and changed her style from the Wharfe Rat rags and cap to a self-styled servant uniform of sorts she became anonymous herself among the gang that she grew up in as she felt safe enough to venture out.

The Wharfe Rats first assumed she had been recruited by one of the larger Gristol gang members stopping in at port, but thanks to Daud, rumor had it she was caught trying to rob someone along the strid and was thrown in. Either way, to them she was gone and would be rapidly forgotten as was generally the fate of the ‘Rat youth. The Wharfe Rats made their trade in dangerous secrets and blackmail rather than black market wares – minor highway robbery was not unheard of among them either. Killing the messenger was a sometimes unavoidable hazard of being a ‘Rat. To date, not a single ‘Rat had done much more than look through her as a humble working-man’s servant with clearly nothing to rob or steal, much less blackmail over.

With time, Lily grew fully out of her feral youth and into a more mature young adulthood. Her hair was a bright auburn under the dirt and grease of her street life, and while it was long and thick, she wore it pulled up into a tidy bun at the base of her neck. Her style of dress was simple and comfortable. She passed a couple of years with Daud with a comfortable and respectful understanding of employee and employer. He did not want her to ever feel overburdened, nor did he want her to even imagine that something more would be expected.

Daud remembered during the Timsch frame-up job years ago overhearing one Timsch’s girls sobbing in the kitchen as she was telling another girl how much she needed the job, even though it meant having to take her clothes off. His face still burned with an old anger when he thought about it. It took a great deal of self-control not to knife the old bastard’s head off his shoulders and be done with it as per Lurk’s unhelpful suggestion, but there was at least the satisfaction that he likely suffered a dismal and lonely death in Coldridge surrounded by rats and thugs.

Timsch wasn’t looking too great when Daud last saw him. Daud was breaking Lizzy Stride out of Coldridge as part of a deal to use her boat for his last job. He had been crawling along some high ductwork at Coldridge, looking down occasionally to assess the guards and wipe dust out of his eyes, and there he was in a cell at the end of a block - the great Barrister Timsch himself – filthy and on his knees mutely rocking back and forth, back and forth, clutching his hands to his chest, clearly broken inside and staring wildly at nothing. There at the end of his assassin days in Dunwall, Daud had come to appreciate the fact that there were better ways to kill a man than allowing him to die.

Daud never treated Lily like a servant, and while her role was one of a servant – it was more of a willing caretaker. She was free to come and go, to shop and maintain the home as she saw fit and Daud primarily stayed out of her way. Their relationship was cordial and relatively formal, with a little small talk here and there – he was not overly friendly nor unfriendly toward her, and she never noticed that hidden in his indifference was a close watchfulness. She kept to herself in the quarters downstairs that had once been empty rooms with little purpose. Lily’s job was easy, as Daud’s needs were simple. She kept the house clean, though it was never really ever messy. Sometimes she would take lemon oil to the wood fixtures around the house when she felt it necessary. Every other week, she washed his clothes and hung them on a line on the back service balcony to dry.

Daud washed his undershorts, undershirts and heavy wool socks himself in his bathroom sink with his Glenheim soap and hung them over his chair near his stove in his room to dry. He was not comfortable with Lily handling his underthings. He took his simple meals alone in his sparsely-furnished room at a small table by the large double window that took up much of the wall. Daud didn’t have regular mealtimes, nor did he tend to eat full meals, so Lily had little to do by way of cooking outside of preparing a few things for his lunches. The rhythms of his life before did not permit for a meal schedule to be set, and particularly after the rat plague when there was no guarantee of what, if any type of food would be available at a given time.

Daud never in his life developed a taste for meat or tolerance for the texture of it, and in his life in Baleton his diet at home consisted primarily of fresh seafoods and fruit - much as he had eaten in his childhood in Serkonos, and various breads he would buy from Anne Bonny’s Bakery a few doors up from his shop toward the Port way. Seafood in tins and jars made him shudder to think about. He liked apples, but not the skins. He would pare them down with a very sharp little blade into a series of small neat crescents and eat them that way. When he would do this at his store, customers would often comment on how adept he was with a blade that he could skin an apple in one long unbroken peel and have naught a nick on the smooth flesh itself. This never failed to bring a small secret smile to the corners of his mouth.

His favorite was Serkonan grapes. He did not get a chance to have grapes as often as he liked, and Lily was often on a waiting list at Worley’s Produce for them and for the plantains when the shipments come up from Serkonos. Every once in a while, after work, he would stop in at the ‘Flask for a hot meal: They were renowned for their steak and ale pies. For Daud they had special version: a savory root vegetable and ale pie. He didn’t mind that it was merely the same with the steak picked out. As long as there weren’t gobbets of meat, fat or gristle in it, he was just fine with that. He liked to drink a good hoppy pale ale at the ‘Flask after work sometimes, smoke quietly and listen to the chatter around him. Sometimes, very rarely, he would even join in.

If Daud bothered to talk regularly to anyone, he would usually shoot the shit with Lib Fury – the wonderfully ugly behemoth of a woman who was the ‘Flask’s very effective bouncer. At first glance one might mistake her for fat, but she was, in fact, built from solid slabs of muscle layered heavily on a large frame – larger even than most of the Rothwild butchers he had seen in his last days in Dunwall. There were few things she couldn’t handle with her hard ham-like fists. Failing that, she carried a loaded pistol on one hip, and a ten pound double-headed hammer on the other. She was widely respected by the rough types who drifted through the ‘Flask from across the Isles. More than a few had tried to recruit ‘Hammer’ as they knew her - but she didn’t budge. The ‘Flask was her home, and the ladies there were her family. Daud enjoyed Lib’s rough company and wished he had known her back in his Dunwall days. She would not have made a good assassin back then, even with her certain grace for such a large woman, but stealth and clean kills? Not so much, but he for damn sure would have liked to have had her in his Whalers in some fashion. She was a brute, but honest and fair. She was also funny – more than a few times they’d share a laugh, Lib with her head thrown back cackling through her large even slab-like teeth and Daud would forget not to smile, the ugly black gaps in his smile far from his thoughts.

On evenings at home when weather permitted he sat on the small balcony alone and smoked quietly while sipping a local ale or wine that had caught his eye in the market on his walk home. He rarely called on Lily for anything in the evenings and how she passed her time was not his concern, but he rarely if ever heard her leave the house. While Lily was certainly an attractive woman, Daud did not consider this aspect of her as part of her usefulness. He was not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but he preferred to keep anything relating to intimacy to himself – hence his penchant for washing his own underclothes out of a discomfort over Lily handling them. He had never shared a bed with a woman, sexually or otherwise nor had he been fully naked in front of one outside of his mother, and even then from a relatively young age he found himself uncomfortable being naked.

He had never been interested in sex, but had experienced mild encounters in his assassin days where women would attempt to seduce him to either secure his employee, offer themselves up in lieu of payment, or attempt to escape his blade. Needless to say, these attempts didn’t work. Ever. Even a powerful sexual being like Delilah, and her coven knew better than to even try to best him with that sort of attempt. As a child, he masturbated like most boys did, and throughout his years would continue to do so in private moments but he regarded it much like any other necessary bodily function. It felt good, the release – but then again, so did a good solid sneeze. He found the most intensely pleasurable private moments with himself were those had in the short dark hours before morning, after a night of particularly good killing, with the smell of blood still fresh in his mind.

These days though, he didn’t really didn’t see or feel the need. Outside of that, encounters for him had been nearly non-existent as he had a distinctly indifferent outlook toward hygiene* in his infamy years. Women were both attracted to, and repelled by him in equal measures in his Assassin days as a result. He was 5’9” and fairly thin, but very strong - all compact muscle and adrenaline and a touch of grace to his movements, and his aloofness just seemed to add to his appeal rather than detract from it. He did not consider himself attractive, particularly not after having nearly a quarter of his head cleaved off one memorable afternoon just off the coast of Pandyssia, but neither the scars nor the smell seemed to kill off the erotic draw he unwittingly had with certain women.

He both understood and did not understand it at the same time – there was something darkly and erotically appealing about the Void and the power it bestowed. His abilities were no doubt a majority of the appeal in those days, given his other negatives. In Baleton, his appeal apparently held – though in a gentler, less erotic manner since the Void had evidently subsided from him. Many women would attempt to ‘land’ the eligible bachelor running Stridside Curious Goods for themselves or for their daughters, but Daud was largely indifferent. There may have been a kiss or two after a bit too much liquor at the ‘Flask in his years in Baleton, but it was primarily a case of allowing it instead of initiating it. It never led to more, as no encounter quite stirred a passion for Daud. He would find himself fairly disconnected from passion – a kiss would end with him considering the taste and texture of a given woman’s mouth, and finding himself mildly repulsed. He never showed his revulsion out of general common courtesy.

Eventually the offers dwindled as it became clear that while polite, he harbored a cold distant heart. It was whispered among the gossip-class women that his heart must have been irreparably broken once, and much speculation was given over the mystery woman (or perhaps man?) who left him unable to love. He found it easier to just let them continue believing that. When he moved Lily in, the gossip flared anew. Eventually, even the speculation about Lily faded as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * In regards to Daud's hygiene
> 
> If you were to get close enough to Daud to deliberately smell him and live, this is what you would experience:
> 
> a. In his assassin days (up to 1837):
> 
> A muggy vaguely rancid sebaceous smell from his greasy hair and skin – while he rinses from time to time to get grime, guts and other assorted body fluids off of himself, he does not bathe proper. If you were very close to him, you would not want to have him talking closely to your face. When his teeth and gums ache he will swish with a high-proof liquor knowing it will kill off whatever rot is causing the ache. Other than that, he does not practice any semblance of dental hygiene. His breath has a hot sour meaty smell tinged with the never-healing rot from his blackened gums where his three lost teeth used to be. There is a smell of plaque and tonsil stones mixed in as well between liquor rinses. His gloves smell strongly of gun oil and cigarettes, and his left glove carries the bitter astringent smells of the remnants of various sleep and explosive ampoules that would sometimes blow back when fired. Even when the gloves are rinsed, the faint odor of the muck he crawls through and the grime of everything he climbs on lingers. The effluvia of body fluids tends to rinse off fairly well, but still leaves behind a faint odor of decomp over time. His clothes smell like wet wool, mildew, unwashed skin and years of accumulated sweat – the healthy sweat of exertion and the acrid sweat of adrenaline. His underclothes have the same smell, only with a vaguely mushroom-y scent that comes with sweat from unwashed armpits and nether regions. Unclothed – which rarely if he ever finds himself, the smell is not as bad depending on what he has done on a given day. There is the rank slightly oniony smell of accumulated body odor under his arms, a deeper sort of fetid body odor below the belt and his feet have a slightly vinegary smell to them, and are prone to fungal infections from constant damp. His toenails and fingernails he keeps short, but when grown long enough - accumulate unpleasant grime. His natural smell underneath it all is a distinctly male musky smell, he has very high testosterone levels, and thus naturally ‘smells good’ under the situational stink. He smells a bit like you would expect a wolf to smell, something warm yet vaguely feral under the various carnal smells carried by its fur.
> 
> b. Currently (1855, Baleton):
> 
> He bathes with a soap that he buys from the Baleton Apothecary Shop a few doors down from his own shop. It is called Glenheim Gentleman’s Soap, and smells like a mix of cedar and sandlewood, and seawater, with a hint of evergreen fresh sap. It comes in rough-hewn light-greenish bars wrapped in brown paper, and lasts for a long time. It reminds Daud of his childhood in Serkonos – warm sea winds blowing from the shores through dark pockets in the forest where he liked to spend his time playing amongst the underbrush and tree branches and later building his agility and balance through focused practice. He uses Glenheim Gentleman’s Beard and Mustache Oil from time to time as well. He brushes his teeth with a bicarbonate toothpowder, and rinses his mouth every night with salt water. The holes in his gums from the missing teeth are still tender and blackened, and while the corrupted charm has made this permanent – the addition of dental hygiene has helped with the pain and smell tremendously. His breath is nowhere as bad as it used to be. He smokes and drinks liquor, so he carries those smells very faintly about his person on a daily basis. His live-in help Lily washes his clothes with laundry powder that doesn’t have much of a smell and hangs them on a line on the back balcony, so his clothes smell like clean sea-air line-dried linens. He washes his undershorts, undershirts and heavy wool socks himself in his bathroom sink with his Glenheim soap and hangs them over his chair near his stove in his room to dry. He is not comfortable with Lily handling his underthings. His favorite coat is a thick black herringbone coat that smells like clean wool, faint woodsmoke and cigarette tobacco, with a touch of Glenheim. He prefers boots to shoes, and far prefers his Whaler boots over any others and generally wears them more often than not. He still has his old gear and uniform, and over the years has maintained them well, and has managed to get them (mostly) clean. They will always carry the slight hint of the smell of his time in Flooded District – long-faded, but still discernable.


	4. Chapter 4

**1855, the 16th day of the Month of Rain, a few hours later**

And so on this cold night in only his loose belted trousers and a strappy worn undershirt, he looked out into the darkness and lit another thick cigarette hoping to cover the smell of the Void that lurked beneath and between the spaces in the darkness that surely he was imagining. He needed to be more awake. He needed the cold. He listened to the sounds of the sleeping city – the occasional shouts, the clanks from down by the docks, the hiss of the factory close-by and nearly lost himself in the that lonely rhythm that only those familiar with life lived largely in dark cold nights know well.

A single sound broke him out of his reverie. From downstairs he heard what sounded like the muffled groans of someone attacked out of a sleep. How many times had he choked out someone from a dead sleep to hear those kinds of sounds? He found himself coming to a cold focus as he flipped his cigarette out of his window and made his way silently out of his room and crept down the hallway. He had not heard someone come in, but closed his eyes and quieted his breathing to take mental note of the attackers. He listened for footfalls, for breathing, for the creak of leather or the shuffle of cloth. He pulled the air in sharply through his nose for a smell – smoke, fishguts, blood, liquor, something to identify as he crept closer to the stairs. Nothing. A challenge, then.

He made his way downstairs, noting no signs of entry. As he got to the rear service door, he saw the latch still firmly in place. A glance to the windows in the front from the hallway showed nothing but the shadows of the bars over them cast onto the floor. He slowed his breathing more, and his reflexes tensed into an old pattern. He reached Lily’s door and listened for a moment – the sound was guttural, deep ragged breaths, and thrashing. He twisted the knob and opened the door wide with a single silent swing and what he saw stunned him into dumb blinking as his mind tried to wrap around what he was seeing and hearing.

Lily was alone. The moon cast a hard light across the head of her bed, casting her upper half glowing and her lower half hidden. She appeared to be attacking herself, one hand at her throat and the other down hidden in the darkness and she was bucking and thrashing. She was moaning and … at once Daud’s mind clicked into understanding and while largely inexperienced with what he was seeing understood it on some level. He watched on dispassionately half horrified while she clawed at herself all over roughly – he couldn’t turn away, something held him in place as he watched.

Words or something like words began to form from the guttural sounds… “Daud, Daud… touch me”. The blood drained from his face as he heard his name - the name she could not possibly know - and then he began to truly comprehend the scene before him – she was Possessed, and she was... From what seemed a thousand miles away, Daud choked out her name to stop this. “Lily”, once weakly, and again sharply. Lily’s eyes shot open and her hands came down to bring the blankets further up over herself. The Possession broke the hold for the moment. She looked at him wide-eyed and dazed “Sir, I.. I’m sorry, I don’t know what.. I’m..” she stammered. She slid out of the side of the bed, presumably to flee – clearly afraid. She held the blankets up to herself, covering her long white sleep gown and backed away. Her tangled hair tumbled down around her shoulders. She couldn’t seem to meet his eyes, but when she did something fleeting and black shifted in her irises and Daud found himself unable to look away, and in his shock did not notice the sudden burn and throb of his mark coming back to life.

The room was filled with the smell of flesh, of flesh wet with sweat and desire, of flesh burning and all around the smell of copper and dust. Every mote of dust in the air turned in the moonlight around them as time seemed to slow and in the silence as they both failed to speak. Daud moved toward her sluggishly as if in a dream – wading through the thick twilight-tinged air. The walls seemed to unhinge and lean in at unnatural angles. He grabbed her roughly by her upper arm and dragged her out of the room with little protest, and up the stairs – away from whatever it was that was attempting to Possess them in that room. The air seemed to thin ahead of them, even as it seemed to seep thickly up behind them.

Her feet stumbled and lost hold of the riser a few times and she was dragged, her feet bumping up the stairs and eventually they made it up the stairs and into Daud’s room where he slammed the door and threw open the other window to bring in a cold slap of air – anything to counter that stifling thickness. As he reached up for the other window to open it fully it was then that he noticed the deep glow of the mark and it all came to him at that moment: the deep pain, the burning, coursing through him like a shot of boiling acid through his veins – his head was spinning and when he turned, she was there in front of him inches away having moved across the room with no sound across a floor that seemed less there. He looked down at her and again noted the black flashes in her eyes, slithering through her irises like eels.

He couldn’t look away and meeting her eyes made his mark burn in a way he wanted more than anything. Everything seemed to shrink to a single sharp point in Daud’s mind even as the walls seemed to be expanding outward and losing substance. There was dark sound all around him, a deafening low aural pulse pressing painfully against the insides of his ears. A word caught in his throat as he tried to speak and he sensed too late that someone, something he couldn’t see was in the room with them and he felt a firm push into the back of his head – an intrusive, overwhelming push that went into his head and filled it with distorted hissing whispers, shoving the part of him that was Daud easily aside … and from a small cramped corner of his brain, he heard his mouth speak over the hissing before his mind could comprehend the words: “Undress me”.

He held his arms out at his side and did not flinch when her cold fingertips traced lightly over his deeply scarred shoulders. She reached to the neckline of his undershirt, wringing it sharply and then brought her mouth to meet her hand – to his astonishment, she tore into his shirt with her teeth, starting a rip that she continued to tear at until the shirt fell at their feet. He felt his jaw set and his teeth clench as something inside him – the Possession, allowed this to happen. He was not aroused but powerless to stop – he didn’t want to fuck her, but he found himself wanting to possess her in another way from the inside out and could hardly keep himself from tearing her open as easily as she had torn away his shirt, and dipping his hands deep in her warm still-pulsing guts. His long-dormant blood thirst roared back and flooded his mind, tingeing the edges of his vision red. She kept his eye, and he watched out of his eyes as they kept hers as she trailed her fingers down to his waist, still whip thin and now trembling under her touch – the cold fingertips, the tips of her nails. She reached his waistband and began unbuckling his belt, untying his breech laces and her tongue met his breastbone like a searing brand directly touching his heart. He shuddered from revulsion from the trap of his brain even as he found himself being forced to slow his resistance from the inside. Her hair smelled lush – the smell of tangled vines and heavy ripe poisonous flowers, her touch turning him sluggish though taut. She slowly trailed down in a nearly obscene parody of a chaste curtsey, bringing his trousers down with her. He stood before her then, just in his underwear, cold and trembling with the effort not to tear into her. He didn’t know at that point or care if she knew how much danger she was in at the moment. Even unguarded and nearly naked, he was still a killer – an Assassin.

He could taste blood now, so close. In a single motion, she raised from her curtsey pulling her gown up with the movement and stands with her gown in her hands naked before him, her skin pale with a nearly phosphorescent glow in the moonlight contrasting with the sparse dark reddish hair a shadow under her arms and at the base of her belly. She dropped the gown and Daud watched it unfurl and fall slowly to the floor in a nearly bent time slow motion. She came to within an inch of him, grabbed his left hand and seemed to notice for the first time the glowing pulsing wound there – the mark. She studied it with mock curiosity and then to his shock, licked the mark while meeting his eyes. “Daud” she said through a near grimace, sucking air sharply in between her teeth with a hissing sound before saying it again “Daaauuuud” – a single gravelly drawn-out syllable while looking deeply into his eyes.

The blackness in her eyes, _her eyes were completely black!_ – Daud shrieked silently from within and overcame the Possession long enough to break from her as if she were a live pylon and in a moment that knew no logic or meaning, he felt himself knocked aside in his own mind, and watched himself lunge back at her hard enough to knock them both to the floor. He pinned her arms above her head and brought his mouth roughly to hers to stop the low throaty chuckle she framed his name with. His tongue into her mouth to stop her sounds that she made as she shifted herself under him.

His mind was flooded with the sound and feeling of how his blade would slide smoothly through the back of her throat and catch with a solid jarring thunk on the inside of her skull – oh, how he wished he had done that to Delilah those years ago when she was right within his reach. It was a half-memory so real – the image of Delilah choking on her own blood as he drove his blade into her shrieking open mouth, breaking her teeth and crunching out the back of her head, perhaps in another time, or another life he had done just that.

His body was Possessed, and a desire he had never known or cared to know throbbed artificially through him and bloomed painfully like a thick bloody thorned black rose in his chest. He tore off the last bit of clothing between them and he pinned open her legs and positioned himself instinctively, having no conscious knowledge of the act itself. He shrank back in his mind, the furthest back he could go and whispered _“Forgive me”_ and lost himself in the vision of his blade going up and up and up into her, ripping through her warm guts and sending her blood spouting from her face, into his mouth, down his chin. He struggled to close his mind’s eye when he felt the hot wetness of her – a tight resistance causing only a pause in the moment. He tried to fight this alien urge to tear into her – to break her, to ruin her, to hurt her but failed. He pinioned her hips with his weight and tore into her brutally, slipping in with as much resistance as a dull serrated blade in soft resisting flesh. He felt sick inside and disgusted as he registered her wetness from his dark corner. He could smell her blood now as he grit his teeth and felt, as much as heard, her animal grunts and snarls and a low wolflike growl formed in his throat as he attacked her body with his own, snapping and biting at her skin – drawing more blood.

The slick coppery taste drove him deeper into his blood thirst frenzy, and in the dark corner of the mind where the Possession could not get at him – even here, even outside the Possession he seemed to be insatiable for blood, for viscera, for that rip at the end and that pulsing gush of a life extinguishing at his hand. Oh how the blood had spurted so hard from Lurk as he had guided her own blade through her guts and out of her back, that wonderful sound of steel crunching through bone and sinew – he remembered the light fading from her eyes and the sharp smell as her body relaxed and purged itself as she died - only, no - he never killed Billie, he... his thoughts became amorphous, confused.

From far away, he thought he heard someone laughing. Building at his core was a familiar voltaic thrill that peaked with some of his better kills, only far more intense – like with Jessamine, her eyes wide, wet and helpless as he grabbed her by her throat, so soft and vulnerable choking off her last strangled sounds, how his blade tore neatly right up through her belly into her chest, and then there was tingling up from his feet, like electric feathers tickling around and up his thighs, up to his very middle and then a sharp painful release as the Possession tore something loose from inside of him, and he could hear himself roar out loud as he emptied into her and his mark dimmed slightly and began smoking. As the throbbing peaked, he let out his breath in a near sob as she matched his sob with a rising keening as she locked her ankles over his back and he felt her pulsing inside along with him, and in his very next breath the smell of dead copper and dust and cold overwhelmed him, icy sharp glittering grit pulled into his mouth and nose.

He opened his eyes, noted that the Possession had evacuated his mind and he found himself lying face-down and naked in the Void. He shot to his feet, aware of his vulnerable state but not caring. He had been drawn into the Void unwittingly. A rage built inside of him – at violating and being violated in such a horrific way, and at being brought into the Void naked, angry and humiliated. He clenched his fists tightly and walked the only clear path of floating broken slate until he reached a stop, and without thinking as if in reflex transversed to the next level of slates until he reached an apparent dead end. The power coursing through him felt as though it had been mere seconds and not decades of fallow time. He knew the Outsider was somewhere close by, would appear in a swirl of black shards and motes at any moment. He stood at the dead-end ledge hovering over the infinite expanse of darkness and waited.

Lily’s blood had already dried to a thick clotted tack matted in his beard and on his body, smeared down his chest and thighs, and within a few moments he felt his hairs stand up on edge as the dead air charged and changed, displacing atoms with swirls of the Void made solid – a twin helix of particles, some like birds, other like bats or amorphous shadows of small shards colliding and coalescing into a form, the Outsider steps forward the same as ever – no, this time he was different somehow, nothing Daud could identify clearly though.

The Outsider's dispassionate cold demeanor was replaced with something sharper, darker – had his voice changed? Even his face seemed somehow more… drawn, feral, and thinner. He almost looked mean. It had been a long time since Daud had been in the Void, but he could tell something significant had changed since his last visit.

“Daud. What a surprise. I never intended to see you again, and yet... here you are. It seems your story isn’t quite over after all. Still spilling blood, I see?” The Outsider leaned in toward Daud, narrowing his black eyes “Though by a … far more _interesting_ method, of course.” Daud studied the Outsider’s expressionless eyes for any hint of humor or irony but found none. The Outsider gestured and a spectre of Lily bloody, torn and naked appeared, frozen in a timeless concurrent moment in Daud’s world – her teeth were bared and rimmed with her own blood, in her eyes a glint of hunger and murder as she was caught in the stop-motion moment of rising to her feet to come after him.

“Who could have predicted that the greatest assassin of our time would have even a _speck_ of innocence left to take. Tell me, did it change you?” Daud was unsure of what to say, so chose to say nothing. “Something else was taken from you that was not in your will to give. Something… should we say… more tangible than metaphorical. A seed, so to speak that never should have been planted. The smallest seed can be the beginning, or it can be the beginning of the end. Which did you sow, Daud? Will you reap the beginning or will you reap the end?” The Outsider dispersed in a black swirl, and Daud stood alone in the Void waiting. The seconds passed with the cold pressing into his mind. He sensed that the Outsider was not finished. A jagged path appeared ahead of him – black slate slabs coalescing from nothing and grinding together loosely to form the way forward. He ran ahead, transversing across the gaps straddling the dark nothing below and above, taking note of a familiar bloody leviathan groaning and bleeding from chunks and shreds of wounds along its flanks, sounding a mournful keening song as it glided through the starless black.

The Outsider appeared again, a disconcerted look on his otherwise expressionless face and Daud suddenly found himself clothed fully, the red of his Whaler uniform, the thick wool and leather offering no real warmth. At least he was covered, anyway – and the blood seemed to be gone. He spoke then to the Outsider, spitting grit from his clenched teeth – “Why did you bring me here.” The Outsider spoke again and studied Daud with an unreadable expression… “I didn’t.”

Daud was taken aback but determined to push him. Daud had had quite enough. “Stop fucking around with this metaphorical bullshit – you tell me what’s going on you black-eyed bastard.” And the Outsider spoke, and his answer shook Daud to his core – nothing could have surprised him more than to hear the Outsider say “I don’t know” before bursting into thousands of black motes and spinning away into nothing.

Before Daud could speak again the slates under his feet began to dissolve and he fell into the cold blackness waiting only to wake...

**************

… UP.” Lily was on her knees beside Daud, roughly shaking his seemingly lifeless form. Daud came to, cold in just his undershirt and trousers. He bolted up and bared his teeth at… Lily. Just Lily in her uniform, hair pulled back primly under her cap, looking at him with a frightened and concerned look. No black flickers, no hint of what had happened. There should be blood on the floor, blood on her body, her throat, he thought – and saw none. He struggled to control his breathing and not alarm her.

“Sir, I heard you fall and came to check on you, are you ok? Sir?” He met her eyes without significantly meeting them, remembering the feeling of being deep inside of her, torn and bloody, the memory of her pulsing tightly around him, her ragged breath in his ear moaning some semblance of his name – his true name, and the smell of her blood on him driving him to tear deeper and harder into her, the feelings and the hunger for her blood so intense – _was it real_?! He let her ‘help’ him up, and he looked around his room and saw no evidence of what had happened between them. “Lily, I… I’m fine – you can go back to bed now.”

He turned and did not watch her leave the room. Daud went out onto his balcony, and sat shivering for a moment looking out at the sky beginning to go light now as morning approached and decided to head back in and force himself to sleep. The shop could wait. It was only as he was drifting off into sleep that he remembered to check the mark. It was still there, though not burning or pulsing like it was last night. He was overcome with a weariness that he could not fight. His last coherent thoughts before drifting over the edge into a deep sleep were those wondering if his mark still worked in this waking world, and why Lily didn’t seem to notice it. He slept through the day and into the night, undisturbed except by fleeting wisps of dreams and memories that he would not recall in waking hours.


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning, he could barely make it out of bed. Every part of him ached with a soreness he had not known since his last days in Dunwall. He was tired from the very core of his bones, and for once felt his years. He struggled to remember the dream he had... he could only remember the taste and smell of blood, and… at once he shot up and out of bed, heart hammering in his chest as the previous night’s events came slamming back down into his consciousness. His first look was down at his left hand – his mark was there, pulsing and shimmering with invisible fumes but not quite burning. Next was to look down at himself confused, still in last night’s clothes. He took off his belt and peeked gingerly down into his waistband. Nothing out of the ordinary down there – no blood. No sign of any use, really.

He let out a sour breath, a heavy film in his mouth and choked back a sickness that rose in his throat if he dared let his mind go to memories of the previous night. Shame, pain, anger, bloodlust all tied in a tight knot clogging his heart and his mind. He went to bathe, unwrapping a fresh bar of Glenheim soap and pulling a rough sisal rag from the small bathroom closet. He ran the water scalding hot and scrubbed himself raw everywhere her touch still burned in his mind. It was not Lily he was trying to scrub away, so much as it was the Possessing succubus who got to him through her.

He could feel that something was missing from inside himself but he couldn’t pin down exactly what it was. What had it taken from him? Only once before had anyone dared to attempt to Possess him. Corvo Attano, whose attempt he batted away with no effort – and he was quite correct in telling Corvo that his mind was the last place anyone would want to be. He went through the Marked that he knew of and came to no conclusion as to whom it could have been that was powerful enough to send him cowering in the prison of his own skull.

That morning, Daud watched Lily furtively as he prepared for a day at his shop. She seemed to be herself, nothing that he was able to tell differently about her. As much as he would not like to admit it, he was watching to see if she was walking differently. He had heard more than enough boastful tales of rough men leaving whores bandy-legged after a long night. If she was walking differently he could not tell, and so he left it that she had no recollection of the previous night. Clearly she had no marks from it either, though he could recall literally tearing her flesh with his teeth – the taste of her blood was still fresh in his mind. The Outsider had shown him the aftermath.

He interrupted her morning work routine, and let her go for the day citing his appreciation for her work, and urged her to go about her way with a handful of coin to enjoy a day of leisure to herself. Once she had gone, he could not stop himself from doing the one thing he swore he would never do: he went to her quarters and began searching them. The first thing he was looking for was the long white gown among her clothing in her wardrobe, and of course it was not there, so where was it? He even looked in her bathroom, through the cabinet under her sink but found nothing but odd bits of clean neatly folded rags in a small box and a few bars of lightly fragrant soap.

This had happened, certainly – and yet it had not happened. A fleeting memory from last night came to him suddenly – during his blood thirst he had vividly remembered killing Lurk and Delilah, though years ago he had spared them both when given the choice. These things had happened; he was sure of it – but how could he have both killed and spared them? How could last night have happened, yet not happened?

He remembered whispered tales in his winter at the Academy years ago of a mechanism dreamed up by that mad brilliant miscreant Joplin that he claimed could split reality and time into its many possible paths and actually allow someone to follow any path to conclusion or change. Joplin and his strange dreams were the stuff of Academy legend in those days – that one though, was the dream that went a little too far. He had heard through his various eyes and ears that Joplin was rusticated from the Academy for attempting to build this device and blowing up two entire classrooms, and a few fellow students in the process. Even Sokolov in his fascination with inventive chaos saw the danger in this, and was largely the reason Joplin got the boot, from what Daud was able to find out. Away from the academy, Joplin would have had no real way or means of completing the machine, and when Joplin died years ago that machine and its potential would have died with him.

Daud wasn’t sure if Joplin had been dreaming within the Void that far back, but it was certainly the sort of chaotic power that he could imagine the Outsider unleashing to someone under the right circumstances. He already granted the manipulation of time, so it was not a stretch to assume that he could grant the manipulation of outcomes as well. He wondered if there was a Marked one out there now who had and used this power somehow last night? Surely that was not a power The Outsider would give someone to be used on a whim! The implications of being able to change time… no, even the Outsider would not grant something as flawed and unpredictable as a human such a horrific ability. Or would he?

Even in the absence of physical evidence, there was no question that something inside had been torn from him. He felt its absence, even as he could not identify what exactly it was. The Outsider had confirmed it. Had whatever been torn from his insides and spilled into her part of a different time or simply something missing from himself in this one taken in the throes of a Void dream? He could think of no clear explanation, and was on the verge of giving up his search when something told him to look around her room more closely – almost an audible whisper in his subconscious. _Look at that bookshelf there, no – not the red book but the green one – the one about the botany of roses._

He picked up this innocuous book, opened it and a single sheet fell out of the book: a worn note, folded and unfolded many times over with only two words in a spidery, scratchy handwriting: black rose. He wasn’t sure what exactly it was, and a flash of memory sent him back to that feeling welling up in his chest, that blooming, twisting and tearing inside as a bloody thorned black rose opened painfully inside his chest sending him… no. He sent his mind in another direction as his mark throbbed once, twice. No.

He left everything exactly as he found it, and left her room. At the shop that morning, Daud could barely keep his mind on the mundane things his mind had grown accustomed to over the years. He had purposefully left his mark uncovered and with his heart nearly in his throat at having it exposed went about the business of a normal day – though normal was looking to be a thing of the past yet again. Customers came and went, some buying – others selling. A few he ran out of the shop when it was clear they were fresh off a ship looking for a black market. A courier would arrive from time to time to deliver the day’s packages and post. No one, not a single person so much as looked twice at his left hand either on the way to the shop, or while there handling business with the mark in plain sight.

Sometime in the dullest part of the afternoon – the slump hour as he called it, as time seemed to slow to a crawl in the heavy afternoon sun he stared off into the distance through the dust motes somewhere beyond the windows of his shop, looking at nothing really and failed to notice a small figure dart in and drop a package at the door. He heard a thump at the door, and went to see what it was and saw a package at his feet. He thought nothing of it and took it into his shop and unwrapped what felt like a book and indeed it was.

He set it on his glass countertop and looked at it for a long time before picking it up again. Of course it would be a copy of The Knife of Dunwall. Of course. With steady hands he opened the book, and pressed in the pages was an old dried flower – red Oxrush. He slammed the book shut angrily, unable to make sense of this situation. On the surface, it stank of witches – lust and blood, rank obscene fecundity but he could think of no recent time where a coven had been active in any of the places he had visited and researched. That cunning bitch Delilah, banished twice now as he had read in a dispatch from a couple of years ago - and had not been heard from since, and the bonds of the witches died as surely as if Delilah herself had died. He could not write this off as a simple prank, or an amateur attempt at blackmail – no, this was something more.

In angry defiance, he marked the book for sale and placed it in his window, and the dried Oxrush he threw away. His day went on as normal, and as the business hours came to a close and the sun faded he decided that in this night – a clouded night with a waning moon and no shadows, would be a good night to test his mark. He closed up his shop, pulled down and locked the shutters, and headed down to his basement to see what would still fit him. May as well dress the part. He unlocked his trunk, and to no surprise at all – his blade had returned and sat right on top waiting for him. He thumbed the blade, gentle as a lover and smiled grimly as the slightest caress drew blood.


	6. Chapter 6

Some hours later, he had still not returned home. He had made it up to the top of one of the hemlock refinery buildings at the main port to the north – transversing slowly at first, and then rapidly through the highest parts of the city, the hidden parts, the dark and deserted parts that all cities have but few can access. He left his weaponry in the safe, and made use of a few of his abilities, and others chose not to partake. His assassin abilities would be of no use – or at least he hoped not, as he had not killed anyone since walking away from Jessamine’s grave that day years ago, nor did he intend to ever kill again, with one exception: he most certainly would brutally murder whomever took from him wearing Lily’s body and his own, that broken piece of his insides spilling out – stolen from him.

He clenched his fists and his jaw, fighting back the red haze that formed in his eyesight when thinking of that gross violation – what was taken from him against his will, manipulated and used like a puppet to… no. Never had anyone had him in such a vulnerable state, not even when he lay bleeding, exhausted and asking for his life at Corvo Attano’s feet but even then that had been a transaction - his life for saving Emily – a fair trade that Corvo had evidently found out about after all. He could think of no other reason for Corvo to come looking for him after all these years. For this particular violation - this possession, he was willing to make an exception to his moratorium on murder. He looked forward to all the different ways he intended to make it hurt, and for how long.

High up above the town, he shrugged his shoulders to shift them more comfortably in the only slightly-tighter jacket and pulled up his slightly stiff gloves and set his thoughts to the next rooftop over. And so his night went, unremarkable but for the blinks and shifts in time that no one noticed. With each blink, the years sheared away from his mind and in his exhilaration at the ease of movement failed to notice the age shearing away from his body as well. His mind was only on going through a list of possibilities – people from his past, excluding not even his mother or the Actor from his earliest memories and one by one eliminating them, assassinating them if you will – from his list. After much practice, Daud returned to his shop, changed back into his regular clothes and tucked his gear back into his trunk. He then headed home, sneaking unseen in the small hours of the morning just beating the rising sun as he blinked up onto his balcony where he sat quietly smoking until the sun came up fully and he crept quietly into his room, undressed and fell into a deep sleep all through the day and night, not waking again until early the next morning. 

**************

Daud opened his eyes, blinking into the grey light of the earliest hours of the morning. He sat up and made his way to his bathroom to splash water on his face, and clear the bleariness from his eyes. He wet his face well, gathering up water and dragging it back through his hair and then down his beard. Once more with the water, and then stood straight to look himself in the eyes in the mirror.

He swallowed once hard, willing himself not to be alarmed at the dark hair that he saw overtaking the white - even his beard was darker. He glanced quickly over the skin of his face, the slack gone – the crags shallower and the scars a bit more pronounced. And something else… surely not – he could feel it but had to see it for himself. He hooked a finger in one side of his mouth and then the other and peered closely – the blackened gaps where three of his teeth used to be were again filled, as if he had never lost them.

Daud rarely smiled as a general rule, but the missing teeth thanks to that damned Lilika and her corrupted charms had made it that much more unlikely that he would. He gingerly touched his teeth expecting a painful sensation, or at the very least for them to dissolve back into painful blackened pulpy holes. No, just teeth. He smiled a wide wolfish grin, baring his teeth – tilting his long jaw left and right to examine the even unbroken rows. Even the normal cracks and chips on his other teeth were gone. He looked into the eyes of his reflection and saw a black flickering dancing around his irises.

He reached up to the mirror, and it shattered in a million pieces spilling out into the Void and Daud stepped in. The Outsider was perched on a rock like a crow – the shiny black eyes looking at him with no expression whatsoever. “You’ve changed, Daud – can you feel the change inside of you as well? Tell me, is it something that was taken from you, or something that was given to you? Would you even know the difference?” He twisted off in a silent whirlwind of black before Daud could answer, leaving nothing but the usual questions instead of answers. Daud did not wait to see if there was more. He closed his eyes, blinked blindly into the Void, and landed painfully, cracking his knees on the cold bathroom tiles.

He stretched his hands out in front of him, palms down. He could see it now. The age spots were fading, and his skin seemed to fit better. His mark was darker, as dark as it ever had been. He felt lighter, quicker. He stood and looked in the mirror again and for the first time in a long time saw a familiar face staring back out at him. It was only then that he realized that not once since his mark awoke did he have need of the spiritual solution. The well of power seemed endless, energizing more with each use. He put out of his mind for now what that may mean. He decided to lay back down for a few hours, and slept better in those scant early morning hours than he had in years, and dreamed in shades of red.


	7. Chapter 7

He did not want to face Lily when he woke for the day, but knew that he had to. He had all but been ignoring her since sending her out on a day off from her duties. It was not unusual for him to go cold on her for days at a time – that was just part of who he was, and she never seemed to mind when he did but this was different. The guilt and shame was corroding him from the inside – guilt he resented feeling for shame that he did not ask for. Regret, his curse – his blessing hung around his neck like a constricting band. He dressed as was usual for a day’s work, trying to ignore the darkening hair and beard. He hoped Lily would not notice. He looked in the mirror one last time, seeing more of the Assassin Daud than he had in a good number of years.

When Daud came down the stairs and rounded the corner into the kitchen, Lily looked a little pale, but was going about her morning as usual, boiling water for tea and preparing some things for his lunch. She hummed as she worked, not seeing him. He cleared his throat before stepping forward and she turned and smiled at him in her usual way and said good morning to him. She looked away from him a beat later than usual, and he felt himself tense up – coiled and twisted with guilt. As good as his acting generally was, he found himself struggling to remain ‘normal’. To his astonishment and near rage, he could see a smirk hiding in the angle of her face as she was paying a little too close attention to pouring the tea. He felt like a fool, until she spoke with a genuine warm humor. “Forgive me Sir, as this may seem forward – but did you… _tint your hair?!_ ” and he could see her lips pressed as she struggled to keep a straight face. Daud felt the tension release immediately, and he breathed in through his nose and disguised the relief on his face as the slightly angry embarrassment of a silly old man. He rolled his eyes and with a “Humph” and a half-scowl, took his lunch and made his way over to the shop. He could hear from her chuckle and tutting on his way out that she knew he was not really angry. He took this innocent exchange as a good sign.

His morning at the shop went as usual, perhaps a little slow as it sometimes was this time of year. He resisted the urge to simply close up shop for the day and spend some time down in his lab, but knew that the trickle of customers would be enough to make more coin than he would if he were messing about in his lab. His customers were the usual mixed bag: a sale of some vintage Tyvian glassware to a woman who was visiting from Old Lamprow, an acquisition of some very interesting maps and blueprints from the decidedly uninterested widow of a Baleton gentleman who had recently passed away, a solid kick to the pants of a young Wharfe Rat he caught trying to steal a chunk of lucky Sphalerite from the big jar on his counter, and so on.

Sometime in the mid-afternoon, when the watery sunlight grew long and the minutes began to drag he was jarred from a reverie by the abrupt jangle of the bell above his door. A young woman burst in, evidently a tourist from her slightly unusual style of dress, perhaps Morlish? – a green suede jacket with tacky artificial flowers, and an unusual lop-sided hair style strode right to the counter – generally people quietly and inconspicuously shopped around a bit before hitting him with the questions. Daud’s general demeanor didn’t exactly invite friendly conversation. She had a bright, but strangely hard smile with curiously sharp eyeteeth – giving her a feral almost rat-like look. Her jacket, so similar to the ones he’d only seen worn by Delilah’s coven didn’t help. Daud felt himself tense up, his old instincts kicking in. He half-expected a bullet to the face, and when he looked back on this sometime much later – decided that a bullet to the head would have probably been preferable in hindsight.

She did not introduce herself, as was generally the custom with strangers in Baleton. “How much for The Knife of Dunwall”, she asked jutting her chin over toward the window – getting right to it, brushing the longer half of her bright orange-red hair back from her face. For a split second, he was taken back to his days of negotiating the price of a life, or rather the ending of one. The book. Of course. “How much are you willing to pay?”

“You have no idea. I have been looking for so long for this and here it is – a first edition even!”

He wondered how she knew that as there were no discernable differences in the various editions aside from the printer’s key, but was far more interested in where this may be going than how much he stood to make from it. She was one of those people who liked to command and keep eye contact, and this made Daud slightly uneasy.

“I take it you are a fan.” He was not asking. He knew. He did not understand what drew women in such ways to the Assassin Daud, as often inhuman as he once was. “You could say that.” She winked at him then, and that unsettled him even more. At this point, the hairs on the back of his neck began to stand up and he suddenly became very aware that his mark was not covered as he felt it begin to itch and tingle.

“I’ll take 50 coin, no less.” He just wanted her out – something about her was raising his hackles, and he began to imagine that there was something familiar about her. Something dangerous. Had he perhaps murdered her father? Mother? Why did this stranger look familiar?

“Deal.” She neatly stacked five gold 10-coins and pushed them over to him, and he then got up to unlock the shutters to his front window to get the book. He had undersold the book considerably – it was worth easily five times that as a first edition in that shape but he did not want to risk haggling, and to be honest he just wanted it gone. It was just another shred of rot that had found its way back to him. He wrapped the book with brown paper and twine, and out of habit, slipped a copy of his Stridside calling card under the knot, and immediately regretted it. He could not take it out without looking suspicious at this point, so cursing himself, he left it.

She took the book from him with a brighter, toothier version of her already unsettling smile and turned to go. “Oh” she said, turning around. “Keep the change” and winked at him as she pulled a flower – a rose, he could see now - from her jacket and tossed it on the counter. She pulled out his card, peered at it and said “I’ll see you soon… Herne”, with a pause and emphasis on his name just deliberate enough to send a chill through his blood and then with a jangle of the door she was gone.

He picked up the rose – more of a bud, really - to throw it away and then hesitated. It was not artificial like he had thought. It was an unnatural color - dark purple at the tips, and then black, true black at the bottoms of the petals where they tightly wound around a dark core. The petals were waxy, thick – like nothing he had seen before. There was something about the tactile sensation of the petals that was nauseatingly lubricated, even though dry. There was a faint smell, something familiar – a dank overripe plant smell. Not quite the fecund birth-rot smell of a Witch, but close. More pleasant than that, much in the way that mud, fresh dirt or still green water is pleasant.

He was intrigued at this point, nearly all of his apprehension replaced by a scientific curiosity. His first thought was that it was probably from Pandyssia, but on closer inspection saw there was nothing really Pandyssian about it – he had seen plenty of the flora there, but this was alien even for Pandyssia. He stuck the rosebud in the buttonhole of his lapel and decided he would do a little dissecting later to see if it held any other secrets he may be able to distill out of it.

Just before closing Gryffid Willems and his wife Jocelyn came in as they were wont to do from time to time. Jocelyn was just as plump and bright and genial as Gryffid was wiry, dark and quiet. Jocelyn took great delight in looking at the latest deliveries from Morley and Tyvia, as she and Gryffid did not travel much as a general rule. They looked around at the various displays and made their way over to the counter so Jocelyn could negotiate a price for a vintage Morlish hat that had caught her fancy. As Jocelyn brightly chattered on about this and that, as ladies of a certain age and class tended to do, he saw Gryffid’s eyebrows shoot up at the sight of the rosebud in his lapel. Neither man made mention of it – in fact, Gryffid seemed embarrassed and made a point to look as if he hadn’t noticed. Daud found this odd indeed.

They made their purchase, and Jocelyn was already carefully arranging the fanciful hat around her neatly coiled pincurls. Gryffid looked back over his shoulder at him with a furtive expression that Daud was certain meant he’d be seeing him again, probably sooner rather than later. Sure enough, not more than an hour later and right as Daud was closing up shop, Gryffid came up to the door and hurried in. He looked at Daud as if to say one thing but ended up asking another “Where did you get that” he asked, pointing to the rosebud. Daud said that a customer had left it for him and described her.

Gryffid rubbed his whiskers and chin deep in thought, and asked Daud if he was absolutely certain about his description. He asked if there were a better place to sit and talk for a while, and they both went upstairs to Daud’s office. Both men lit a cigarette, and Daud poured himself a double of Orbon rum. Gryffid declined the offer of a drink, and while Daud described the strange young woman in greater detail, Gryffid listened quietly and smoked somewhat nervously. It was then that Gryffid told him the legend of Black Rose.


	8. Gryffid's Story

Now, Hearne – I’ll get it out right up front. Rose Everleigh was a _butain_ – a whore plain and simple, and a notorious one at that. Rosie was a strange kind of pretty thing indeed. She was just shy of grown when she got her start here – whip thin with sharp bony points - all elbows and knees as they say. Even her eyeteeth were sharp, like little rat teeth – she hid them but you could see them when she laughed. She had that kind of hair you don’t see too often – like a tangled knot of fire it was, a bright orange red frizzing up around her face. You don’t see that bright of a red too much around here, so Rose was somewhat of an attraction even aside from the whorin’.

Legend has it that she was sold as a little girl by her widowed mother to an old wealthy gentleman barrister in Dunwall, and he promptly ruined her. The thrill faded quickly and he then sold her to the Golden Cat for a good profit since she was still young, largely unused and had that unusual look about her. They say she became the most skilled and sought after girl in the place – so much so, that Madame Prudy turned her out for taking up so much of the business away from the other girls. That could be idle talk though, no one knows any of that for sure. All we know for sure is that she just showed up in Baleton one day just shy of grown, found her way to the ‘Flask and that was that. She lived there until died.

No one was ever sure where she _really_ was from, and her stories of her past and her life changed with near about every telling. Every client I bet has a different secret story they think they know about Rose. She knew the talk about her – she would laugh it off over a drink and a smoke and say she didn’t care what anybody had to say about her, as long as it wasn’t true. There was some that say she was a witch, but I never believed it. The only spell I heard tell of her casting was over the various pricks in and around Baleton – oh how she made them stand, or so I’m told.

You see, Rose had this _trick_. I never partook myself, as whoring doesn’t really catch my fancy but the men would gather around the stove at Baleton General Merch - the very store you own now, and tell such bawdy tales of romps at the ‘Flask but let me tell you – when the stories turned to Rose, the talk got hushed and you’d think there was almost a reverence about the conversations. I never knew what the trick was, but you knew the ones who did – they all had one thing in common. When she was done with them, she’d always say the same thing: “keep the change” and toss a rose on the bed, or floor, or wherever they had just done their fucking. She always kept a rose or two on her person, or pinned in her hair for that very purpose. Not just any rose, Hearne – it was one just like the one you have there in your buttonhole.

I hadn’t seen one in near twenty years now, and there you were sitting in your shop with not a care in the world with one right out in the open for all to see. I can’t imagine what would have happened had you worn that thing all around Baleton – there’d be an army of stiff old man pricks following you, I reckon – hoping to find Rose. Either that, or you would scare more than a few people. Rose has been dead for almost 20 years now – she took her own life – threw herself right off the top of the Lighthouse and busted wide open when she hit those rocks. One of the Worley boys, can’t recall which one – was there and saw when she jumped. He said it was the worst thing he had ever seen or heard when she hit those rocks. This worries me, Hearne. The idea of the dead, much less a suicide coming back terrifies most folks. They really would think she was a witch then, I reckon. And the roses? No one ever found out where they came from or where she got them. They don’t grow around here. If they do, no one has ever found them, not for lack of trying. It is somewhat of a rite of passage for young boys and girls to dare each other to go lookin’ a black rose in the dead of night at the Lighthouse where Rose threw herself over. Seems when she went, her roses went with her.

**************

Gryffid went quiet for a moment, dragging thoughtfully on his cigarette. Daud was not sure what to say and simply sipped down the rest of his rum. He was thinking back to the sound Duchess Abele’s head made when it hit the cobblestones and considered that the sound of Rose breaking open on the rocks was probably far worse. He decided on another double, and this time Gryffid joined him for a single of his own. “There’s more if you want to hear it, Hearne. It’s getting late though.” Daud decided he certainly did want to hear it, and so Gryffid continued his story.

***************

When Rose died, she left behind a child – a little girl. The girl lived right there in the ‘Flask with her, sharing a room. The ladies all loved the little girl and helped take care of her, and though she grew up on the top floor with naught but whores for care and company, she didn’t seem to suffer from it. If Rose ever did anything untoward in front of the girl, I never heard about it. You never really heard anyone talking about that part of it. I don’t think anyone even knew the girl’s name, or if they did they kept it to themselves. I don’t know it to be honest. Rose fiercely protected the girl’s privacy – I suspect thinking back to her own days as a child, opened and exposed for any and all to partake of.

It is my understanding that the girl took after her mother to the point where no one could even speculate about who fathered her – she was the spitting image of her mother. Rose serviced every Isle, you know – men from all over would come to taste that trick she did. There’s no telling who the little spit’s father was. Oh, you’d hear the stories about this man or that, pirate or royalty or Wild man who had gotten a bastard with Rose but no one knew really. I think Rose knew.

She had started talk about how she was going to her ‘man’ as she simply called him, and live as a family with their daughter. She even went so far as to quit whoring, and evidently made plans to travel – she even packed her life at the ‘Flask up in her trunks and strapped them shut. The evening before she was supposed to leave, she didn’t make it much further than straight down the side of the cliff.

We can only guess as to what happened to her plans, but in the end she chose to take her life and left her little girl behind. She would have been five or six at the time I guess. The girl didn’t take well to hearing that her mother had died. They say she spent a good week refusing to eat, soiling her clothes and refusing to speak. She would just lay there on her side and stare at the wall. One day she came ‘to and never spoke a word about her mother again – not even to ask about her. You’d think she never had a mother from what a few of the girls there said.

The ladies cared for her as much as they could, but sure enough the child went feral quick after that - running the streets with other kids in her similar station in life. Not even ol' Lib Fury could reign her back in. One day, she simply didn’t come back to the ‘Flask. If I had to wager a guess, I’d say she is probably dead – though she as easily could be running scams and cut-pursing with the Wharfe Rats or some other gang to this day.

Now, you say this stranger was fairly young – would you say about in her twenties? Yes? Well, Herne, it strikes me just now that the stranger might just be Rose’s daughter come to think of it. I wonder…

***************

Gryffid stroked his whiskers and seemed deep in thought. “Well, Herne we may have solved the mystery. Let’s see if she turns up again. I’d be mighty curious to meet her. I better go, the Missus is likely getting fretful, though I’d have to wager its more of a snore than a fret.” He winked at Daud with a good-humored grin, and they both went downstairs to lock up and head home.


	9. Part 2: Lily

**1855 - the 16th day of the Month of Rain, late evening**

Something wasn’t right about this night. Lily tried to shake off the anxiety and restlessness that had been building all evening. It was late now, and quiet out. She sat on the small bench on the back balcony in her uniform, smoking and looking out over the dimly-lit back alleyway behind Bldg #4. Occasionally someone would skulk by in the shadows, hunched over, cap over the face – a ‘Rat on the way from one no-good deed to another, no doubt. It was cold and raw out, and the slight breeze carried a hint of a strange smell that she couldn’t place. It reminded her vaguely of the dreams she had been having the past few nights. She had been dreaming about the Strid – or rather, what was under it.

All her life, she had heard tales of the world under the Strid, where Baleton laid to rest their dead. Legend had it that any living person who fell (or was thrown, as was usually the case among her type) into the Strid was said to be sucked down into the water and straight down the waterfall fathoms below into the twisted poison world of the Deep Folk. All of the poison in the Hemlock that grew in Baleton was said to come up from the Deep Folk, who sent it up to seep through the thinnest layer of soil where the Hemlock grew – for a purpose no one could name. No living soul who ever went there came back. Some said they became slaves to the Deep Folk. Others reckoned that they _became_ Deep Folk – the blood in their bodies slowly curdling into poison that streaked their veins black under their pale clammy frog-skin, and filled their eyes near to bursting, bulging and shiny black.

Whatever the case, each night Lily had been having vivid dreams about that world under this one. The dreams were all much the same. Lily would wake in this dark place and find herself rising to her feet in a world lit only by the sickly phosphorescent glow of the poison rivers and the various slimy bulbous pulsing things that grew out of the black sticky mud of the subterranean riverbanks and along the rough paths like misshapen toads or slugs writhing and curling in on themselves on the ends of thick glowing stalks.

The glow was that of whale oil gone rancid – a brilliant blue with a hint of green. Not the shimmering crystal green of the Hemlock essence, but the rancid blue green mottle of rotting fishbellies stretched and thick with maggots. She could see that place deep underground so clearly that at this point she could likely map it. There was a large area that stretched upward into stark blackness, all around the sound of the rush of the Strid overhead pouring into the thick swampy rivers around her and quickly going still. She could see vaguely rounded thick figures rolling under the surface of the dimly glowing water, sometimes she thought she could see a face – maybe fishlike, or froglike with flashes of light illuminating up from somewhere far below in the deep. She would walk in a lucid dream wonder, taking in the horrific beauty and relative quiet of the place. There was a cold here the she sensed, but could not feel exactly. She would continue to walk, making her way across stone arch bridges and along paths toward what looked to be a central location: some sort of rough-hewn tower that went up so far she couldn’t make out the top.

She wondered more than a few time in a disjointed dream thought if this was how the poison got up to the Hemlock. The past few nights she had been getting ever closer to the tower. It seemed each night her dreams would pick up right where they left off, stepping exactly back into the place she left the night before. Tonight she was nearly afraid to sleep. The night before during her exploration she kept seeing shadows darting around, just out of direct eyesight. Dark figures, with no shape or meaning that her brain could comprehend or assign meaning to in the waking hours. She knew somehow that there was someone waiting for her at the tower.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to know who it was, but she knew with little doubt that when she finally fell asleep her dreams would surely take her there. She shivered again, drawing one arm closer in and drew in a deep lungful of smoke – calming her nerves some. She had a coat just inside, but needed the cold. She intended to fight off sleep as long as she could tonight. She watched a few more people come and go – some furtively through the shadows, others members of the Watch whistling snippets of song or grumbling to themselves.

She wondered if she had never met Mr. Merrock where she would be sleeping tonight. In the old ‘Rat bunkhouse? In the ‘Flask whoring herself out? Down with the Deep Folk, slowly turning into poison? She tried to put that thought out of her mind and thanked whatever lucky stars she had that she had this place to call home, particularly on a night like tonight.

She really did feel like this was home for her, even though she was in Mr. Merrock’s employ. He never made her feel like a servant and she was always happy to look after the old man. Somebody needed to. She remembered many cold nights just like this one, running some scam or other in the wee hours for H.H., wishing more than anything just to be able to sleep soundly and be warm again. The memories of her childhood were vague, but she thought she could remember a time where she was warm and someone loved her but she could not bring to mind anything specific. All she could remember clearly was growing up a ‘Rat, and while a handful of those memories were ok – good, even – most were not.


	10. Chapter 10

Her earliest clear memories were her last days at the ‘Flask. She couldn’t remember much – she knew her mother had died, but as hard as she tried she couldn’t seem to bring up any memories before that. She had a vague idea of what she looked like – bright red hair, a wisp of a memory of her smell – cigarettes and some kind of perfume and the warmth of being curled up in the darkness with her. She tried to recall her face, but only a blur came to mind. She could not remember her voice, or her touch. She could remember old Mrs. Abernathy and her cold comfort, and the other ladies there who truly did try to dote on her.

The closest thing she had to a mother at the ‘Flask was Elizabeth ‘Lib’ Feary. Lib was a big ugly blunt-faced woman built like a solid side of blood ox, and about as attractive as one. Lib never said one way or the other, but rumor had it she had fled from Tyvia. She came into the ‘Flask barely out of her teens years ago looking for a job, and Mrs. Abernathy hired her on the spot – not as one of the ‘girls’ but as the perfect person to protect them. They called her Lib Fury in Baleton – a fearsome pock-faced bruiser of a woman who acted as the security detail for the ‘Flask. Those outside Baleton called her ‘Hammer’ for the large hammer she carried along with her pistol. She was a hard woman with a hard heart, except for the one small soft spot she had for Lily. Lib taught Lily how to fight and protect herself. She also taught Lily how to swear like a Morlish sailor as well.

She was young, unsure of her exact age when she had started running around with a few of the kids that she would see around the docks – some older than her but most seemed to be around her age. They were so much more fun than the ladies at the ‘Flask. On into the long hours of the afternoon they would roam in a pack swaggering and swearing like the rough folk they saw getting onto and off of the ships that came and went through the Baleton port taking things from one place to another. Sometimes they would hide in various places and throw bottles at the Watch, and take off running away laughing at the chase. They were fearless, these kids – they were dirty and rough, and above all free.

She came to know a few of them by name, and one night she decided that instead of heading back to the ‘Flask for the night she would stay with them instead. It was Cholly Shanks who introduced her to H.H. Cholly was an older boy, not quite a man. He seemed to be in charge of the little ones, and when running with them and showing them the best places to hide and sneak around pretended that he wasn’t having as much fun as he actually was. When Lily told him she wanted to stay, Cholly got all serious and a little quiet, asking her if she was sure. She assured him that she was, and he told her in no uncertain terms that once she decided to stay with them, she was going to _stay_. Lily wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but agreed to follow them back to what she assumed was some sort of hideout.

They had taken her to the Bunkhouse, which was an abandoned Hemlock processing warehouse a short ways down from the port as the crow flies toward the town way. Since the Port had been built, the processing plants and warehouses in the area had been incorporated into single thriving facility. Outlying buildings away from the Port had been abandoned, and in this case repurposed into the place that this rough band called home. Her first impression of the bunkhouse was the smell – the very faint remnants of the pungent stink of pressed Hemlock were soaked into the wood of the place itself. Not strong, really but ever present. It reminded her a little of the smell of the creosote that streaked the wood of the docks.

There was not much at the Bunkhouse – there was a room with plenty of bunks, a room with a rough kitchen setup for cooking, a room for storage, a few offices up on the second floor, and a basement that few if any of the others went down into as it was off limits to all but a few of the older kids, and of course H.H. She decided that it was good enough to call home. Cholly took her upstairs to H.H’s office and made the proper introductions and it was then her life as a Wharfe Rat started.

She would never forget the talk she had with H.H. after Cholly left her there in the office with them. H.H. just sat and looked at her from across his old pockmarked and stained desk for what seemed like a very long time. He asked her what she wanted, and why she was here. She told him that she wanted a home. H.H. then told her that home was a place that she could never leave and after getting assurance that she would remain true to her intent, he told her all about the Wharfe Rats. The Wharfe Rats were not simply a gang of kids running around the town raising merriment and hell. He explained in detail the structure of the organization.

There were the little ones like herself who were free to roam the town with Cholly, playing at hiding and sneaking so that when they were older could learn to be a sneakthief and make quick escapes after picking pockets or stealing from various stores. The young ones who had semblance of manners and well-breeding, or who could at least fake it well, would take part in various blackmail schemes, including setting up unsuspecting strangers fresh off the boat as unsavory molesters or would-be kidnappers. The older ones were the ones who initiated and controlled the blackmail schemes, and would perform the necessary break-ins to various homes or businesses to find any information that could lead to a lucrative take if used properly. The young men and women nearing adulthood were the ones who made the contact with the target, and arranged the takes.

If times ran lean, there was always pickpocketing, petty thievery and robbery that the older ones would do to take up the slack. H.H. sat at the top, collecting the takes, marking his ledger and budgeting the takes to fund the organization. As the ‘Rats aged, most would end up boarding a ship to join up with some of the other larger organizations across the Isles. Some would come back to visit, full-fledged Howlers, or Rough Boys or Bottle Street thugs and have long and private conversations with H.H. It was in this way that the ‘Rats had a loosely-knit network all across the Isles.

H.H. wasn’t necessarily a frightening man, but it was very clear – absolutely crystal clear that crossing him would result in a toss right into the Strid, and there were plenty lined up behind him to do the honors. Lily worked her way up in the ranks. She had participated in a number of takes, most of which were the variety in which an older gentleman was set up to appear to be taking advantage of the exotic looking ‘innocent’. She spent more than a few nights sleeping rough, staking out various places for the older ones to make their takes from. There was no corner of Baleton that she didn’t come to learn, no hiding place that was beyond her finding. Though she was whip-thin she was strong for her size and just as agile – she could scale any climbable object quickly and efficiently while avoiding detection. She wasn’t above a good fight, and had more than once given or received a bloody nose or a busted lip.

Her bravado wasn’t without mishap though – on a few occasions she found herself on the wrong end of a traveling thug’s temper and ended up beaten pretty badly. She had grown hard as a result. She could take a punch, and deal it out equally. She was unrecognizable by this time to most who had known her as a child. Since taking on the more complicated jobs with the ‘Rats, she no longer felt comfortable revisiting her past or people in it. It didn’t pay to keep those kind of ties. She doubted anyone from the ‘Flask would recognize her now anyway. Her hair at that time was shaved clear off around the sides and back, and longer on top – darkened and stiff with grease and grime. Her once delicate porcelain features had been dirtied, marked and reshaped by hard living and more than a few fistfights.

It had been a few years since the last time she had spoken directly with anyone at the ‘Flask, and to this day she still burned with shame when she thought about that conversation. Even though it had been 8 years ago, it still came up in her mind as fresh and humiliating as the day it happened. To this day, she wished she could scrub that day from her mind.

She had been a little older and running with the pickpockets at that time, learning how to best steal from various stores and tourists along Stridside without raising suspicion. It was a warm morning, or as warm as it got in Baleton and she had been feeling a low ache in her stomach and back and her chest was hurting some too. At the time she figured she had just had the bad luck of eating a slightly more spoiled ration the evening before. As the morning wore on, she got oddly sweaty and sick feeling and begged off the assignment to go back to the Bunkhouse for some privy time. Before she got there though, she felt a wrenching in her gut and something come loose inside her and her pants felt suddenly wet. Had she pissed herself?

She ducked into one of the narrow alleys between the stores, hid behind a stack of barrels and after looking carefully both ways down the alley pulled her pants down and looked. Her vision swam for a second taking in what she was seeing – there was blood. Bright red with thick dark clots. She knew what it was. She had been hearing about it for years. It was the Rat Plague! They didn’t get it all and it had made it to Baleton. She nearly fainted then with fear. Everyone knew about the horrors of the Plague – the stories from Dunwall were horrific, even to this day after it was supposedly ended. The tales of Weepers explosively vomiting poisonous flies and spilling blood out of their eyes were the stuff of nightmares – and to think it was blood coming out of her bottom parts was even more horrific. Would poison flies burst out of her belly, her bottom?

Her thoughts were panicked and nearly incoherent – sick at the thought of being full of insects and blood-bloated illness. She pulled up her pants and made her way back to the Bunkhouse as quickly as possible. She had to tell H.H. before she got any sicker, before she got anyone else sick. She made her way up to his office, and knocked loudly. No one knocked loudly. _Ever._ H.H. came to the door annoyed and got ready to give her the business, and stopped. She was bloody and very pale. She must have gotten hurt, maybe cut along the legs or belly. He let her in, and she trembled as she confessed to having the Plague. H.H.’s brows shot up momentarily startled, thought better of it and he asked what she was up to. “You ain’t got no rat plague, you ain’t got blood in your eyes – what are you playing at, girl?”

Lily explained that the blood wasn’t coming from her eyes, she pointed down and said it was coming from there. She told him she could feel the poison flies twisting around in there, and her chest hurt too. She bravely raised her chin and asked to be thrown into the Strid – there was no better place for a poisonous Plague victim to go. H.H. went quiet and red faced for a moment. He walked her down to the bunks and told her to stay put. He left for a good half-hour or so, and returned with Lottie Worley, one of the girls from the ‘Flask, not much older than Lily.

H.H. just said “go on, Lottie – you know what to do” and left. Lottie was carrying a bag and Lily thought for a wild panicked moment that Lottie was simply going to kill her right then and there with whatever was in the bag. Instead, Lottie pulled a handful of clean soft rags folded up into thick pads from the bag and started quietly and gently talking to her while helping her get cleaned up.

After Lily was cleaned up, she calmed down considerably and the longer Lottie talked, the more relieved she became, if not a bit shamefaced. A LOT shamefaced. Once she knew it would happen every moon, she about halfway wished it had been the Plague. And like clockwork every moon since, Lily would leave the Bunkhouse and spend a few days hiding out in an abandoned but clean sturdy shack she had found out in the Wilds. She felt strange bleeding in such a way around the boys and men. It wasn’t something she could articulate – she just felt the need to be alone during those times.

The shack was dry and felt safe in a strange way. The perfect place to bunk for a few days each month. She wasn’t sure why someone would abandon a shack that well-built but the Wild folk avoided it, and not once was she bothered in her coming or going. She wondered who had built it and had lived (or died?) there. In the past two years since she was taken in by Mr. Merrock, Lily had not been back to the shack, but imagined that someone had laid claim to it by now.

As Lily learned and mastered the ‘Rat trade, she became as savvy as she was strong. Whatever she set out to do, she usually managed it well. She made H.H. plenty of money, and he grew to respect her largely self-taught skills and determination. He felt she was becoming ready for residential jobs, and had decided that she might just be the right person to get inside Mr. Merrock’s home. Until now, he hadn’t had a person he felt up to the task and preferred not to outsource any of his network in the Isles. No, this one he wanted to keep to himself. This and more he had shared with Lily and no one else. She became overconfident as she got older – and that is how she ended up being thrown to the ground with her arm nearly snapped in two by Old Man Merrock.


	11. Chapter 11

She had been staking out his store for some time. The older ones, and H.H. in particular were convinced that there was more to Mr. Merrock than appeared. She could find no evidence of such – he just looked like a mean old man to her, and acted as such to her other ‘Rat brothers and sisters. Getting a stiff kick in the arse by Mr. Merrock was nearly a rite of passage for them. The little ones would take turns daring each other to wander into his store and steal a trinket and run. Sometimes they got away with it, most of the time not.

They would report back what they saw – how many doors inside? Did they see him go into any or come out of any? Were the doors locked? Were they able to sneak up the stairs to the second floor? Did Mr. Merrock loop his keys to his belt? What about a pouch? Did he have the bandage on his hand? And so on. As far as she knew, not a single soul had ever made it even near to the stairs leading up to the second floor of his shop, or the door in the back corner beyond the counter. Mr. Merrock seemed to know when to pay attention and damned if he didn’t move fast when he needed to.

She wasn’t sure if he knew exactly what they were up to. It wasn’t petty theft that interested H.H. No, H.H. was far more interested in what he couldn’t see through the eyes of those kids. H.H. himself had only been to Stridside Curious Goods once. He had gone in not long after Mr. Merrock had renovated and reopened the old General Store as a Curious Goods shop. H.H. never detailed exactly what had transpired in his one visit, but after that he never went back and gave Mr. Merrock a very wide berth.

He became determined to find out more, and so the young ones became his way of doing so – not that there had been any luck there. It had been fairly early that day when Merrock caught her, still dark out and cold. She had been watching him from the time he left Stridside Bldg #4 til the time he arrived to open his store. She watched from a short distance just out of sight behind the monument in the town square. She took note of the big keyring hanging from a back belt loop, and watched as he worked the largest key into the lock and opened his shop. Lights went on and off, upstairs and down and in a half hour or so he walked out and started sweeping the walk.

Her goal was to get those keys – she was certain that keyring held both his house and his store keys. Who knows what secrets they would find? Maybe a safe full of gold, silver and coin, maybe a stack of incriminating letters – all she knew is that this was her chance to make it one more rank higher. She made her way quietly back toward Bldg. #4 and then headed up the street toward the ‘Flask and then back down on his side of the street, slowly closing in.

She got just up to him, and made a quick swipe with her razor to silently cut his belt loop, only in a single moment of ill-timing he turned ever so slightly and she cut into his purse instead. She had never seen a man move faster in her life than Old Man Merrock. Before she could react, he had pivoted effortlessly around and had her arm in his bandaged left hand with an iron grip and twisted her upper arm hard. It was either fall to the ground, or get her arm snapped.

She fell hard right on her arse, and stared up at him with frustration and hatred. There went her chance, pissed away by an old man. Her thoughts went blank when he bent slightly forward and looked unflinchingly right into her eyes. Something in his eyes changed in that moment – this was no ordinary old man. She saw something in those eyes that both terrified her and thrilled her. It was something she hadn’t seen before, not to that extent. It was power.

She knew she had to know more – fuck the keys, fuck whatever he had in his store. None of that was his secret. His secret was right behind those dark green eyes. He abruptly turned his back on her then and went about his business sweeping as if nothing had happened and she pulled herself up and walked away, angry, humiliated and intrigued. She decided at that moment that whatever it took, she would follow this man to the ends of the world just to get a glimpse at even a sliver of whatever it was that she saw in his eyes. She couldn’t name it, but she wanted it.

She spent the next two days and nights away from the Bunkhouse watching Merrock’s every move. She watched him leave the store that day late in the afternoon and make his way down the row of shops – stopping at the Apothecary first, and then Anne Bonny’s Bakery for a sizeable boule of bread. He even went to the ‘Flask, where she slipped in to watch him from a dark corner table from under her low-pulled cap – even Lib didn’t notice her. She watched him sitting at the bar with his bags on the stool next to him quietly sipping a drink and smoking, occasionally stroking his beard looking to be deep in thought. He didn’t talk to anyone except the barkeep Nan and that looked to be not much more than requests to top off his drink.

She watched from the shadows as he made his way back to Bldg. #4 with his bags, opened his door and went inside. She waited for the Watch to pass by to a safe distance, and then quietly sprinted and swung herself up the balconies of the vacant apartments next to his building, and perched on one of them watching the lights go off in his place one by one. She perched on the balcony in the dark watching the dark windows until she could stay awake no more. She jimmied the simple lock of the balcony door, and napped on the cold floor of the empty apartment until the weak light of morning woke her up.

Shit! She had missed him leaving. She knew now though that the top two floors were his, but not much else. She stretched, joints cracking from a night spent on a cold hard floor. She made her way to the back of the empty apartment and let herself out of the back balcony door watching carefully for any Watch that may be walking through the alley. She spent much of the day bored and wandering around the vicinity of the store – Mr. Merrock kept a long schedule at work, and did not appear to leave the store during working hours. It wasn’t difficult to ditch the ‘Rats for a while – she knew ways of disappearing into the background and remaining unseen. It wasn’t unusual for the older ones like herself to stay gone from the Bunkhouse for a few nights at a time so she knew no one would really be looking for her anyway.

The sky was going dark when Mr. Merrock finally locked up his shop and made his way across the square to Bldg. #4. She was grateful he didn’t make any other stops – she was on edge but very tired. She stayed a safe distance behind, and it was only after the last of the lights were out that she approached his building. This time she was going to take a look inside. Something seemed to be pulling at her, and dampening any fear that she otherwise would have had. She made her way to the alley behind the building and simply loitered for a little while in the shadows, watching stragglers come and go. A Watch walked through and made his way on down the alley, but paid no attention to her. It was almost as if she were invisible in that moment. It was perfect.

She looked both ways down the alley, saw no one - and then launched herself quietly up to the second floor service balcony overlooking the alleyway. She again looked around to check area and then set about picking the lock. It opened nearly immediately with a quiet liquid ease. She had gotten very efficient at picking locks and this one was no obstacle. She almost felt sorry for him in that moment and wondered why it was that H.H. had been so hesitant to send anyone else. Even one of the little ones could have picked this lock without much trouble.

She made her way in, thanking her luck that the door did not creak. In fact, nothing in the apartment seemed to squeak or creak. The floors and hinges on the doors were silent. She slowed her breathing and crept quietly through the largely empty rooms of the downstairs floor. She found little, but everything she found she examined – looking for anything Mr. Merrock may have of interest to H.H. and to herself, anything that might explain what she saw behind those eyes.

As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she found herself making her way with ease and a very strange familiarity. She figured the building she spent the night in the previous night must have a similar layout and she just failed to notice it in her haste to get back on Merrock’s trail. She made her way up the stairs leading around and up to the top floor, again noting absolutely no creaks or pops from the risers. Upstairs was a little more interesting – this was where he seemed to live. There were pieces of worn furniture, small tables and a few strangely colored paintings on the walls that she found uncomfortable to look at for very long.

She tried each room she came to, looking through drawers and closets finding nothing outside the usual belongings one would expect an old man to have. She found nothing of value, and nothing suspicious. She felt herself getting closer to something though. She made her way to the last door on the right of the hallway pulling her straight razor out of her ankle sheath and moving it to her front pocket. Something was raising her hackles. Something told her that the old man wouldn’t be asleep behind this door, but she had to get closer. She had to see.

She tried the knob carefully, feeling the lock catch. She took a deep breath, held it in and then picked the lock. She swung the door open and flipped open her razor. She wasn’t expecting what she saw, and stopped in her tracks. He was sitting down with his back to her wearing nothing but an undershirt and loosely belted trousers. The moonlight was bright and his shadow cast nearly to her feet. She took a step forward with the razor at the ready, not sure what she was doing. Any plan she had was long gone from her mind.

She took another step and he simply said… “Lily.” Her mind raced in a split second. In some incoherent part of her brain she though ‘father?!’ But when he stood and faced her, she knew immediately that wasn’t the case. He had that look in his eyes, the same one she saw before on the ground at his feet. She folded her razor, and keeping her eyes on him worked it back into her ankle sheath. For what seemed like a very long time, he simply looked at her with no expression, lightly clenching and unclenching his fists.

She looked at him too, trying not to flinch. It was clear she misjudged him. He may be older but he was no old man. The white hair and beard, and baggy clothes hid the compact muscle of his shoulders and arms, and he was thinner around the middle than she had supposed. His skin had the slightly lax look that one would expect in an older man, but did not sag or bunch like an old man’s. His left hand was bandaged as usual, and crisscrossing up his arms, across his shoulders and chest were various scars – the worst of them faded with age.

She could see he had been shot at least once in the right shoulder – a large ragged edge starburst standing out whitely against his skin in the moonlight. What she couldn’t understand was how he managed to survive it and how his arm wasn’t blown clear off. It looked worse than any scar she had seen with the exception of the one on his face but everyone had become accustomed to that one.

She could not have been more surprised by what he said next. “How would you like a job?” Lily just gaped, astonished. She could not think of a single thing to say. Merrock crossed his arms, pinning her with his stare. He had said, “All you have to do is die” and started to walk toward her. She would never forget that liquid fear searing through her turning her insides to fragile glass when he walked toward her. She couldn’t seem to move, nor did she want to.

He reached out, and gestured toward the door and asked her to follow him. And so she did. As it had turned out, he was offering her a chance she would likely never have again: the chance to walk away from her old life and start over – become a different person, or perhaps the person she was always meant to be. The conversation was simple and to the point. Merrock would arrange to plant a rumor that she had tried and failed to rob him along the Olde Strid Road as he was making one of his visits to the Wilds to collect artifacts for his shop, and she had ended up “falling” into the Strid in the struggle.

Just enough to explain her death, but not prove that Merrock had thrown her in. Accidents happened all the time along the Strid. All it took was a stumble. In her new life, she would have the downstairs to herself to live as she saw fit. She would work in a professional capacity as the housekeep, but her schedule and tasks were hers alone to decide. Merrock would appreciate the help, but in no way relied on it.

At first she was hesitant. She knew what some of the ‘Rat girls did to bring in money on the side. They allowed themselves to be used – or in a few instances were hired to use older men in bizarre ways that she wanted no part of. As much as she was determined to crack Merrock’s secrets, in no way was she interested in doing it from underneath him.

Her fears were quickly put to rest. Merrock didn’t look at her like men sometimes did. There was nothing suggestive in his talk or the way he carried himself. He seemed unusually indifferent. Perhaps he didn’t like women and preferred men instead? With time it was clear it wasn’t that way either. He simply lacked any evidence of carnal urges altogether, which worked just fine for Lily.


	12. Chapter 12

Even with the promise of freedom to live as she saw fit, the first few months weren’t easy to settle in. Lily had never known a life with adequate possessions or a private place to call home. Old habits had her sneaking out at night, disguised - looking for things to steal and pawn at the blackmarket that operated out of the back of Anne Bonny’s Bakery.

Her days were long and quiet – she was not used to having whatever she needed at hand, and she was especially not used to having the luxury of time with nothing to fill it with. It was crucial that she lay very low for a while, even to the point of forgoing her monthly camp at the shack in the Wilds. She became comfortable though, with time. Merrock brought her whatever she needed or wanted and largely avoided the downstairs entirely.

He gave her a variety of clothes he had picked up from the ‘Tog until she could shop for herself without being recognized. Some of these she discreetly cut into long strips, folded and stored under her sink. She never felt threatened in any way by him, and eventually even stopped snooping through every corner of the house. She hadn’t really expected to find anything. The real secrets were locked tightly in his head, and as cordial as they were toward one another, she didn’t really see a way around that particular lock.

For the time, she was content and comfortable. Her hair grew in, and grew long. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her natural hair color – a blaze of dark red, like dying embers. Her skin cleared, and with adequate and consistent sustenance she filled out a bit as well. When the day came where she felt comfortable to leave the house, she was nervous. She wondered if anyone would recognize her, even with her more rounded features and long shock of red hair. It was clear the first day that they did not. They simply accepted that she was Merrock’s new hired girl, fresh from Morley.

Oh, she felt the stares and knew what they implied, but eventually that stopped and she became just another familiar face in Baleton. She made a point of being “shy” to the extreme of being nearly mute, so she never really had to worry about the questions that invariably worked their way into everyday conversation with merchants and various townfolk. She merely looked demurely down, and did not answer except for a small shrug and apologetic smile. The day came where she realized that she could breathe easy.

She had been walking up to the ‘Tog to see what she could find to put a new uniform together from, and had looked up momentarily from her customary downward gaze and nearly met eyes with Hilliard Humphreys. He looked to be on his way to the ‘Flask – probably to see Lottie. He didn’t so much as catch her eye, and appeared to look right through to the back of her head and beyond. She looked down, and sidestepped meekly, as she imagined a servant would.

And so her days went, with little incident. She handled the laundry, and scant washing up with no complaint. She liked the rhythm of her days, and at night would flip through the handful of books she had nicked here and there hoping to pick up reading. She considered joining the Common School at some point, and seeing what she could learn. She never thought she had the head for it, but it seemed she was heading in that direction after all.


	13. Chapter 13

**1855 - the 16th day of the Month of Rain, a few hours later**

There was no fighting sleep any longer and she was getting too tired. Lily stubbed out the last half of her cigarette and headed inside, shivering. The place was quiet and dark, and she heard nothing from Mr. Merrock upstairs so she made her way to her room where she laid on her bed in her uniform and cap, too tired to even undress and fell nearly immediately into a deep sleep.

She opened her eyes, and saw she was back deep underground. She stumbled to her feet and made her way toward the tower, compelled to follow the path ever forward. Around her, the air seemed more charged than usual, the sickly twilight-green glow somewhat brighter. She could hear the revolting wet slither of the slimy growths at the dank rivers edges as they undulated slowly into themselves. Her senses were heightened and the general fog of the dreamlike state she had experienced before sharpened into an edgy focus.

The air was cold, but she didn’t feel the cold so much as sensed it around her. The growths were larger and more formed as she got closer to the tower and eventually towered overhead – giant poison mushrooms emitting the sickly blue-green glow that lit the path ahead of her. The waters in the rivers around her were picking up a sluggish flow, and she could more clearly hear the humped rounded creatures when they broke the syrupy surface to roll slowly over and dive back under.

The creatures were larger here in the flowing water, their rounded backs swelling up and rounding back down again. She caught the faces again in flashes of light underwater – the frog-fish features gaping at her and then disappearing under the surface. This time though, she saw their teeth – multiple rows of sharp points in their flabby-lipped jaws caught in the flashes of the underwater lights. For the first time, she felt that they were looking at her. She knew she should be scared, but for some reason she found herself calm.

The stagnant swamp-smell of the place freshened into a more bitter pungent sting and she knew she was getting close to the poisonous heart of this place somewhere up in that tower. She walked along, taking note of the various growths, some beautiful and others so unspeakable that her brain simply refused to consider or make sense of them. Around her, shadows darted here and there – creatures that were outside of her ability to see directly, and they were watching her. Tracking her movements.

The glow became brighter still, and she could see far off across the waters different buildings, none like she had seen before. They looked ancient yet perfectly preserved and somewhere in her mind she reassured herself that this was just a dream – as the angles of the buildings and the walls were simply not possible. They were rounded and also sharp cornered like triangles, the outer walls appearing to lean both inward and outward at the same time, yet maintaining the tight even brickwork in an impossible way. She could not look at them for long without her head swimming, and simply focused her eyes ahead toward the tower.

She could not see the top of the tower as it stretched up into the darkness. She could see windows now, though, and balconies and stairs spiraling up the outside of the tower and the shadow forms flitted to and from her field of vision appearing to head from one location to the next on the tower in no apparent pattern or purpose. Something was pulling her now – reaching into her brain like a fishhook reeling her in closer, and she picked up her pace to keep up with it. When she slowed, there was something like a shadow of pain deep in her mind warning her to keep moving.

When she reached the bottom of the tower, she saw there was no apparent way in so she heaved herself up to the lowest stair and began her climb. She paused here and there to look into the windows, but saw nothing but her own reflection warped and rippled in the impossibly black glass. Shadows crisscrossed around her, and she could feel a chill each time one came near.

She finally made her way up to a sort of landing that she hadn’t seen before, and saw a woman wearing a long white flowing gown standing there with her back to her. Something instinctively told her to hide. She hid behind a stone pillar that held part of what looked like a small rope-and-plank footbridge stretching out into the darkness away from the tower toward a place she could not see. She crouched down and watched the woman as she swayed left and right, left and right with a hypnotic liquid rhythm like the eels she’d see just under the water’s surface off the pier in Baleton.

The woman appeared to be blurred somehow – almost as if she were underwater, cloudy and out of focus and Lily couldn’t make out much more than the fact that it was shaped like a woman with a flare of orange red swirling around her head like seaweed. The white dress moved around her like smoke, shimmering up and around and down the dark shadow of her figure underneath, ignoring anything approaching any rules of gravity. Something about this strange dance made Lily feel deeply uncomfortable – like she was watching something far too intimate to watch but she couldn’t take her eyes away. She knew she was meant to watch. Compelled to, in fact.

It was then the woman started humming in a way that pressed into Lily’s brain like a physical force. It was indescribable – an array of atonal notes all hummed at once, as if by a chorus and not just one woman. Lily felt herself getting warm, then hot, then breaking out into a sick sweat as she watched the woman running her hands up and down the vague outlines of her form – the humming becoming more of a burring sound like a thousand locusts. Something bored into Lily’s brain at that moment, and she felt helpless as it expanded in her mind filling it with arcane whispers.

Suddenly, the woman whipped around and looked through the stone pillar straight into Lily’s eyes. It was not possible but the pillar was there and also not there at the same time. Lily shrank into a corner of her mind, watching the woman as she lay down on a large slab and began doing obscene things to herself, forcing Lily to keep contact with what surely must be her eyes but to Lily, they looked like dark amorphous holes in an otherwise blank face.

Lily could not look away, and was helpless to stop the sensation that this thing was filling her with. Her breath grew short, panting – fighting the overwhelming urges that were being forced through her. The air grew thicker, darker – a twilight hue deepening into a dark violet and Lily was powerless to move. She was overwhelmed and then, with no warning or transition whatsoever, she was wide awake and in her room.

She slid out of her bed, her legs wobbly and tried to gain her footing. To her astonishment, Mr. Merrock was in her room. He was looking across the bed at her with something between alarm and illness – she couldn’t tell if he was going to shout or vomit but he reached out and grabbed her roughly and pulled her out of the room, heading upstairs. She stumbled up the stairs, her feet bumping helplessly as he tugged her violently up them. She could feel something heavy and dark behind them, creeping in - and ahead of them, the cool air seemed to hold some promise of escape.

She was not sure how, but her cap was gone, and her hair had fallen into a tangle around her face. She was wearing what looked very much like the gown she had seen that woman in. She had no time to consider it fully before they burst into Merrock’s room. He reached up to open the other window. She saw a flash of… something. Something in his hand? On it? And then she was deep underground again, behind the pillar as if she had never left.

The woman in the white gown was not alone now. There was a man there, a soldier maybe, standing with his back to her wearing what looked like some sort of red uniform and he was wearing a very realistic and terrifying wolf mask that moved as if his very head was that of a wolf. She could see the fur clearly, and the black lips pulled back tautly over long white sharp teeth.

Lily watched as the woman somehow disappeared and reappeared right at the man’s back and he turned and appeared startled to see her inches from his face. His left glove lit up, no… something under his glove on his hand burned and flared so brightly she could see it through the dark leather. She could see every detail with impossible sharpness. She was far enough away that she should not be able to see anything clearly about either of them, but from this distance she could see even the individual whiskers on the Wolf-Man’s grizzled face twitch.

The woman was still clouded and her face obscured, but Lily could somehow feel what the woman was doing to him even though she didn’t understand it. She felt that pressing again in her head, that intrusion that was forcing its way in with its damnable whispers. She shrank aside and watched from inside her own head as the Wolf-Man said something to the woman in white. Lily was not sure what to think as she watched the woman tear into his clothes, literally with her teeth – ripping and shredding the layers of the jacket like tissue. She trailed her sharp fingernails down and unlaced his breeches.

The Wolf-Man seemed to be trembling with some sort of taut anticipation. His gloves faded away like some sort of illusion and he bared his fists tightly. Lily wasn’t sure if he was going to fuck this woman or tear her to shreds with his fangs and claws(?) – his hands didn’t quite seem like hands anymore, and the back of his left one was glowing and smoking as if he had been freshly branded. The woman then licked his chest – her tongue a long pink wisp in the clouded aura surrounding her face. The Wolf-Man shuddered as if with revulsion, and Lily could smell the anger and adrenaline coming off of him in waves, a feral animal stink that clogged her throat and nose.

There was something else she could smell, something like a rotting garden, heavy and cloying and hot. Overripe and distinctly female. The woman in white seemed to bow in front of him, taking his pants down with her leaving him in only his underwear. He was all pale skin, dark hair and wiry twitching muscle – his long tongue lolling and wet between his fangs. The green eyes rolled behind the mask, though in some part of her mind she accepted that it was not a mask – _it was his actual head_.

The woman stood suddenly, pulling her gown up and over her head standing naked and glowing with the same sickly greenish glow of the riverside flora in the underground world. Lily could not make out much, only pale skin, flowing seaweed hair and the long twisting fall of the gown from her hands as if in slow motion. The woman reached for the Wolf-Man’s hand and pulled it to her mouth, licking the burning branded part of it and said something in a guttural growl that sounded like ‘Down’ or ‘Doubt’ – Lily couldn't make it out clearly.

The Wolf-Man jumped as if shocked, sprang back and shimmered momentarily in a state between there and not-there. He nearly disappeared, and then just as suddenly he snapped back into a solid state and attacked the woman in white. Lily was shocked and unable to look away. Her body was held fast in place, and from her place in her mind she felt the same sensations as before starting to overtake her.

She was trembling and hot, sick with a heaviness and tugging in her lower belly that reminded her of her moon time, though it was a good two weeks away. The woman in white didn't seem to be in pain – in fact, she was laughing and the Wolf-Man snapped at her mouth as if to shut her up. The Wolf-Man seemed to be in some sort of trance as he moved on top of her.

Lily could smell blood now, the very air seemed misted with it – coppery and slick. Clotted and dark. Everywhere the smell of blood, a red cloud closing in her vision. She realized that she could sense this from the Wolf-Man as if reading his tortured thoughts. His mind was suffused with murder, blood, viscera – it was driving him toward something, and the woman in white was behind the wheel.

The Wolf-Man tore off his own underwear then, and pinned the woman in white down, legs splayed open at a near impossible angle and there was a fleeting moment of what Lily sensed from him as a profound sadness, and then he drove violently into the woman with his body. Lily was hit with a searing pain at that very moment – something inside her was tearing and burning, driving itself deeper. She crouched behind the pillar unable to move, tears sliding down her face as she watched the Wolf-Man tear into the woman with his body and with his teeth, his thighs and his white muzzle going red. She could not identify this pain, but knew it has something to do with what she was seeing.

Lily’s mind clouded with the relentless pain and even in the far reaches of where she hid in her mind, she could avoid it nor stop it. It kept coming in waves crashing against the deepest parts of her guts, rocking her insides, clawing at her from the inside. From far away in her mind, she heard the woman in white laughing cruelly even as she heard the wet ripping sound of the Wolf-Man tearing mouthfuls of her flesh away.

The Wolf-Man’s growls came to a nearly howling crescendo and some wave of sensation overcame her – a pulsing intense electric feeling from her core and then _something_ took root inside of her, and her vision went completely dark.

Lily woke up suddenly and rolled off her bed and nearly vomited on the floor. She was weak and wobbling from the nightmare, and careened into the bathroom – pulling off her uniform breeches just in time to plop down, ribbons of sickness spooling out of her in waves. There was still the thick smell of blood and adrenaline clogging the back of her throat and that mixed with the hot smell of her own sickness caused her to nearly vomit again. She broke into a clammy sweat, cleaned herself up and flushed and the nausea slowly dissipated as she rose to her feet to splash water on her face and pull her hair back into place under her cap.

It was a dream. Just a dream – all of it. She heard a loud thump from upstairs just then and took off running to see what had happened. She threw open the door of Mr. Merrock’s room and there he was lying in the moonlight in just his undershirt and trousers, glazed eyes wide open and apparently dead. She panicked, and fell to her knees beside him shaking him roughly. “Wake up, wake up, WAKE UP!”

And then he does, his eyes rolling and then squinting into focus. She nearly fainted from relief. “Sir, I heard you fall and came to check on you, are you ok? Sir?” She helped him up, and Mr. Merrock looked genuinely confused to see her, and stumbled over his words ““Lily, I… I’m fine – you can go back to bed now.”

He coldly brushed her off, and turned his back on her. She was genuinely relieved enough that this seeming slight didn’t bother her in the least. She was just glad the old man was ok. She turned and went back downstairs to her room, and after a while lost in her troubled thoughts, she finally fell asleep and if she had more dreams she did not remember them.


	14. Chapter 14

The next morning, Lily awoke and gingerly rolled out of bed. She felt a little weak from the spasm of illness after her horrific dream, but otherwise ok. No pain, and nothing felt out of the ordinary physically. She went to her bathroom, and looked at herself in the mirror brushing her hair and splashing water on her face. How odd it was, the banality of such a normal morning after what had happened in her dreams last night.

She dressed in her usual uniform clothes, pulling her hair in a neat bun, and pinning her favorite cap to her hair and then it was time to get started on the morning. Mr. Merrock was already in the kitchen and sitting at the rarely-used small table in the dining area when she came in and started running water, and pulling various things out from which to prep him a light lunch for work. He was quiet, and seemed lost in thought. She didn’t say anything – she was used to his silences, comfortable or otherwise. Seemed they were both tired this morning, anyway.

Finally he spoke up “Lily, you don’t have to do that today. Here, take this, take the day off and find something more fun to get up to. Consider it vacation pay for work well-done.” Lily tried not to be surprised at the amount of coin he handed her, but simply bowed her head down in a quick nod with a smile and a ‘thank you, Sir’. It was a bit more than she was used to. Enough, maybe, to pay for courses at the Common School. She decided that she would head over there and look into it.

She returned to her room, and changed into something comfortable and anonymous, and pulled a slouchy hat over her hair. Fixing her purse to the front of her belt, she wondering for a second if she would have a little cutpurse following her around today. She chuckled to herself imagining it. She lingered on the back balcony for a moment or two to smoke, trying to remember the shreds of the rapidly fading dream from the night before. The parts she could remember, so vivid the night before were clouding and breaking up into nonsensical bits.

The Wolf-Man with the white fur and gory clotted muzzle were the clearest thing she could recall. Something shifted deep inside her brain when she focused on the memory of him, something seemed to actually reach toward him ever so faintly. She shuddered, and took a deep drag chalking it up to overthinking what after all, had just been a dream. She flipped the butt of her cigarette sharply away. On a whim, she decided to lock up the balcony door from the outside and then launched lightly over the railing landing easily in the empty alley on her feet in a crouch.

The day was an average day in Baleton – watery sunlight struggling through the gauze of the thick clouds. It was cold but not icy. A good day for a long walk. She decided to take a leisurely route to the Common School by way of the bay. She hadn’t been down to the pier in a while, not since one of Hatter Wilde’s boys had drowned there. She didn’t know for sure, but she suspected that something a bit more than a trip and a fall happened to him that day. Officially, the boy slipped on the slick wood of the pier while he was fishing alone, knocked his noggin hard and fell unconscious into the water to his death. She smelled a little ‘Rat in this instance, and though she had no way of knowing – she was right, or partly so.

It had been a Bottler who had been over from Dunwall recruiting, and the wee ‘Rat he picked did just as she was instructed on her very first trial run. The Wilde boy didn’t even see it coming. He died in the cold water with his eyes wide open in his blanched freckled face, with empty pockets and a cracked skull. The girl had rolled him into the water with her foot off the side of the pier without an ounce of remorse, and the Bottler knew he had found his recruit. This same little girl would one day grow up to witness first-hand the infamous 1870 Bottler-Hatter bloodbath headed by two cousins who ruled the streets of Dunwall from opposite sides, and would never realize that she had been the start of it all.

Lily went where her feet took her, and after a stroll on the pier taking in the bracing salt air she found herself making the walk up the path leading to the lighthouse at the overlook. She hadn’t been there since she was a child – and even then it had been on a dare by some of the other ‘Rats. It was said that the girl who committed suicide had been betrothed to the Outsider himself and became his bride in the Void. Legend had it that on nights where the eve of her wedding coincided with a full moon, she would appear at the top of the lighthouse in her wedding dress, carrying a bouquet of black roses and leap from the top of it to the rocks below.

There were rumors that she was a witch who had been involved with a notorious coven in Dunwall before coming to Baleton, and the young ‘Rats were rightfully frightened of the idea of her coming back from the dead, imagining a ghoul dripping black clots of blood and seawater through its exposed bones, its putrid guts trailing behind it as it rose slowly out of the sea in a slow bridal walk back up the cliffs to meet its dark-eyed lover.

They would dare each other to look for old Black Rosie along the path on a moonlit path, and the youngest and most naïve were tasked with providing a black rosebud to prove their bravery in crossing paths with the demon bride. It was a shivery delicious sort of fear, full of childlike terror that was close enough to thrilling that it was fun. There were few kids in Baleton, ‘Rat or otherwise who hadn’t gone seeking Black Rosie at some time or other. A few had even claimed to have seen her, though Lily knew that was a load of crap.

She walked up the rocky path leading past the old castle ruins, and on ahead to the lighthouse high up on the cliff. There weren’t the usual tourists milling around at the overlook – it was strangely quiet for such a nice day with a relatively clear view out over the bay. There seemed to be no sign of old Wickie Baley either, so she looked around to see if anyone was around to see and then snuck around to the cliff side of the lighthouse and climbed over the barrier there. She peered down to the rocks below, imagining what it must have been like for that boy who saw it happen those years ago.

The Worley boy had grown up, and moved on to somewhere else in the Isles – leaving no stories behind to speculate on. It was a long way down, longer than she cared to consider and turned to make her way back to the path. As she was walking away from the lighthouse, something compelled her to look back. There was a woman high up on the galley looking down at her. It was hard to make her out clearly with the sun in her eyes, though. Lily started to walk toward the lighthouse to get a better look from the shade, and the woman walked around the galley out of Lily’s sight to the bay side. Lily broke into a quick walk, flanking the lighthouse to see better around to the bay side of the galley, and to her astonishment the woman was gone.

For a moment she panicked thinking that perhaps this woman had thrown herself off the lighthouse, but when she peered over the barrier and down at the rocks, there was nothing to be seen. Perhaps she was a friend of old Baley’s and had gone up there from the inside? There was no other way up the lighthouse, and visitors were most certainly not allowed inside the lighthouse, much less up on the galley. She could still see rough spots here and there in a rough spiral where stairs had been affixed to the outside of the lighthouse at one time, but no good footholds left of them to climb. Maybe Baley had a woman caller - even old fellows like Baley had needs, she supposed.

She shrugged it off as best as she could and then made her way back down the path. She thought about poking through the castle ruins like she used to do as a kid but decided against it. She doubted it would be any different except for perhaps more run down. It was a wonder what was left of it was even still standing. It must have been one hell of a lightning strike (or a hundred at once as legend had it) to take down a castle into such ruin in a relatively short number of years. Less than fifty, she reckoned, but it looked like the place had been plundered and abandoned hundreds of years ago.

She made her way down toward town, and then hooked right on Stridside and walked up the street toward the ‘Flask. She passed by Anne Bonny’s and Hatter Wilde’s place, bought a couple of apples from the Worley stand, and then on past the alley where she had her first blood, and then past Mr. Merrock’s store. She saw him sitting at the counter, glaring down at something in front of him. Looked like some sort of book. She kept walking, idly wondering what he was so angry about.

The ‘Flask was the same as ever, and she looked around a bit to see if she could see Lib Fury. She always felt a little sad thinking that Lib wouldn’t recognize her, but never felt compelled to revisit that part of her life. She couldn’t risk H.H. finding out she was alive. All it would take was one idle word around Lottie Worley, and her secret would be out in a matter of hours. No, best to leave the past where it was. She couldn’t imagine what H.H. would do to her, and didn’t dwell much on that thought.

She walked on down toward the extended part of Stridside heading out of town down to the Common School. It was getting toward the middle part of the afternoon, and she had already gone through one of her apples. She found herself oddly timid about inquiring about courses at the Common School, but took a deep breath and walked right up to the big white double doors and let herself in.

A little less than an hour later, she walked out into the fading afternoon feeling a sense of hope she hadn’t felt in a long time. She had met the nicest lady at the front office, who had gently ascertained where her best fit would be with her current level of knowledge. She had been worried about being placed in classes with children, her sharp knees banging on the bottom of a too-small desk but her worries were quickly dismissed. She was planning on starting in a small group of similar-aged students who were learning to read beyond snippets, and then she would work her way up toward matriculation into the printing trade.

She had taken a tour of the Baleton Ledger presses, and was in awe of the clanking machines and the smell of the press ink. She knew immediately that she wanted to belong here. It would take time, but she felt sure she could manage it. Her ‘vacation’ money from Mr. Merrock was more than enough to get started. She found herself excited to share this news with him, and wondered what he would think about it.

It was getting dark, and Lily was anxious to get back to Bldg #4. The moon was nowhere to be seen, and the clouds were rolling in dimming the night even further. She pulled her jacket closer around her, and made her way back into town. As she crossed over the extension line into the business district, she could feel something was different. The air seemed thinner, more charged than usual as if the wind was coming down hard from the north. This time of year, though the wind tended to come up from the southwest – a denser humid wind than what she was feeling now.

The Watch were going about their business as usual though, whistling and calling hulloas to familiar faces along the streets. People were clearing out of the town and heading to their homes, only a few stores still lit up: Anne Bonny’s of course – always open from the back during evening hours, and Hatter Wilde’s. She could see the Hatter’s wife inside, busily dressing mannequins and arranging clothes here and there for the next day. She was crossing the town center, strolling along the edge of the fountain and looking around aimlessly. She was tired, and ready for sleep.

She was not terribly surprised to find Mr. Merrock not at home. There were many nights that he spent in his shop late at night. His shop window had been dark, but she knew that didn’t mean much. He spent most of his after-hours time either upstairs or down in his shop doing whatever it was he liked to do with his time. She walked around the back of the building and instead of letting herself in through the common door on the bottom floor, opted to launch herself up to the balcony above, and let herself in there. She didn’t stay awake much longer. She changed for bed, leafed through the papers that the woman at the Common School had given her, and then laid down to a dreamless sleep.


	15. Chapter 15

When Lily woke up the next morning, the house was unusually quiet. Mr. Merrock would usually be puttering around getting ready to head over to his shop. She crept up the stairs and gently put her ear to the door and heard even, steady breathing and figured maybe the old man just needed a day off. She went back downstairs and started her day, cleaning a little here and there though there wasn’t really a need for it. Everything that she saw that needed to be done was done before ten a.m., so she decided to take another day out of the house. 

There was something bothering her about the woman she saw at the lighthouse. She wasn’t sure why it bothered her, but for some reason it did. She wanted to get a closer look. She pulled her hair back, and went about getting ready to head out. She glanced around the room idly and noticed something out of place on her bookshelf. It almost looked like something had been moved. She pulled a book out of the shelf, a green book with ornate silver foil stamped roses that she had liked the cover of. An old faded folded up note fell out, and she picked it up. 

She nearly dropped the paper in shock. Black Rose! She felt a wave of nausea hit her then, a mix of fear and wonder. Black Rosie had left a calling card. She thought back to the woman on the lighthouse. There was no way, no fucking way that had been Black Rosie. Black Rosie was a fairy tale, a spooky story that kids told each other. She trembled and picked up the note again and took a closer look. Maybe it was just something the previous owner had jotted down – it was evidently a book about roses, so maybe it was just a note about that. Surely. She folded the note back up and put it in her pocket, catching her breath and calming down. She absolutely was going back to the lighthouse now. 

Lily crept back upstairs to Mr. Merrock’s room and listened again at the door, hearing nothing outside the normal sounds of a person sleeping soundly. She headed back down, and then grabbed her jacket and basket and headed out. She may as well stop by Worley’s on the way back to stock up on a few groceries. It was nice out, a bit warm with surprisingly clear skies – perhaps she would take her time and stop by a few other shops as well. First though, the lighthouse.

The walk was uneventful, and when she made her way up to the rocky path to the lighthouse nothing seemed to be up at the overlook except a bracing wind and little else. There was no sign of Wickie Baley. He was usually puttering around outside on nice days like this one. The lighthouse didn’t really need a keeper around the clock so he was probably out in town somewhere. She looked around furtively, and then went to the lighthouse and tried the door. Locked of course. 

She made an automatic grab for a lockpick kit that was back at the house hidden under layers of old clothes in her wardrobe, and cursed herself for not bringing it. It had been a long time since she had any need to pick a lock, so it hadn’t really occurred to her to bring it. She looked around to see if there was any stray scrap or sliver of metal she could use but found nothing. She walked around the lighthouse to the bay side and looked down over the side. 

Down on the rocks stood a woman. The same woman. She was looking out over the bay, the water rushing in around her ankles. The day may be warm, but the water in Baleton was never below bone-chilling cold. She wondered if the woman was perhaps mad, or maybe she was a tourist. No one in their right mind, or anyone who knew Baleton would have been down there messing around on those rocks. At that moment, the woman looked up at her as if she had been reading her thoughts. Lily could not make out her face but she was able to see her a little more clearly. 

The woman must have been a tourist from Tyvia or Morley - she had a strange outfit on for being from these parts of the Isles. She wore a short dark jacket, either dark green or black from what she could see, with a high collar. It did nothing to hide the amount of skin she was showing above the low-cut vest underneath. Her pants were form-fitted and she wore high black boots. She had an unusual hairstyle as well – either that or her hair had come undone on one side in the wind and had fallen to one side of her face. The color of her hair was an unusual mix of bright orange and brown, and the sun was catching it just right making it appear that there were sparks flying all around her head. She looked young, not much older than Lily. The woman put a hand to her face as if to block the sun and get a better look at Lily. Lily edged back and decided she would head down the path and head up the small beach and find out who this person was. Normally she wouldn’t care, but something seemed to be compelling her to find out more. There was no way for the woman to walk away where she wouldn’t pass Lily, so Lily wasn’t in a particular hurry to get down there walking with a purpose but not an urgency. 

She felt her breathing slowing down, her ‘Rat instincts taking over as she got closer. Her gut was telling her that something was dangerous about this woman. She made it to the bottom of the path, and jumped the small ridge of rocks separating the path from the beach. The woman should be just around the next ridge of rocks, but she was not there. Lily stood on the sharp rocks looking out over the water, not sure what to think. After a while, she headed back up the path and walked back toward town. 

The rest of the afternoon was pleasant, if not a little dull. She made her way to Worley’s and picked up some grapes and a few apples. At Anne Bonny’s she picked up some bread from the front of the store, and discreetly checked in at the back to see what interesting things the black market side had to sell. There was always something interesting in stock coming from different parts of the Isles, but today her mind was not caught by anything she saw there. 

Mr. Merrock’s shop was dark, so evidently he did end up taking the whole day off. She meandered toward the pier, but was getting tired by that time. She sat on a bench for a short while, playing ‘spot the ‘Rat’ – picking out various youngsters, some familiar – most not, up to no good. She had long since stopped holding her breath when any of the older ‘Rats from her time passed her by. They looked past her without a second glance. She would thank whatever stars had guided her that she had not gotten any tattoos that would have given her away, or picked up some scars on her face like Mr. Merrock’s. She liked being able to hide in plain sight, an ordinary round-faced house-girl enjoying a few hours off. She ate one of the apples and then decided to head back to the house. 

The house was still quiet when she got home. She went up to check on the old man, this time opening his door and going into his room. Under any other circumstance she would never do this but he had been asleep for an awfully long time. She stood over his bed, watching him sleep – his breathing easy, deep and steady. It was nearly dark in his room with the shutters pulled but she could make out enough to see that he seemed ok. He somehow looked younger in sleep - perhaps it was that she wasn't used to seeing him without his thick-rimmed glasses. He had the blankets pulled tightly around him, and seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary or anything to worry about she left him to his sleep for the rest of the night, closing his door softly. 

She decided to stay up for a while, changing into her comfy clothes and doing something she did more out of habit than necessity – she took out all of her ‘Rat gear: her razor case, her small blade set, the lockpick kit, a whetstone and a few other odds and ends she had collected over the years and spent some relaxing time sharpening, oiling and cleaning her blades, rubbing the oil into the various cases and pouches bringing the brown and black worn leather to a low glow. She had a vague feeling that she may need these, probably sooner than later.

Later, as she was drifting off to sleep she pulled every image of the woman at the lighthouse into her memory, focusing on them – trying to make sense of them. _Was_ she just a tourist passing through? No, it was definitely more than that, she could feel it somehow. An old enemy with a grudge? Someone sent to follow her? She felt certain that if H.H. had found her out, he’d do something considerably more murderous than sending someone to follow her. Her racing thoughts eventually slowed and she fell soundly to sleep.

She woke up with a start, deep underground at the top of the tower in the same spot behind the pillar. Shadows flitted around her, seemingly aware of her but not coming any closer. It was lighter down here this time. The glow seemed to be less sickly, a bit of blue the color of a low flame added to the strange phosphorescent green. She rose to her feet, and some morbid curiosity led her toward the place where she saw the Wolf-Man and the woman. 

The top of the tower seemed both contained and endless at the same time. The distance she walked toward that spot should have taken her over the edge at least 25 feet ago. There was little to suggest that anything had happened as she walked over. Though it looked only a few feet away, she walked for what seemed like a long time before she reached the place where she had seen the woman in white and the Wolf-Man tangled in their violent rutting. 

She had never seen anything like what had been drawn, no… _carved_ into the porous sandy stone. It was a large circle, with strange shapes that inexplicably shifted and moved outside of the confines of their deeply carved lines and curves. Woven throughout the designs was some sort of writing that glowed a bright blue-white that formed bright curves and rays extending out past the circle. She tried to make some sense of it, but the symbols shimmered and wavered just out of her eyes’ ability to focus on them. 

In the middle, there was a shape that she had never seen and her mind was confused by it and veered away from trying to understand it. Inside the shape was a rounded object with some sort of metal brackets affixed in four places. The object itself looked like some sort of old ivory or bone, and there was a strange symbol either painted or burned onto it. It looked like a circle with spikes radiating out of it. At first she thought the object was on fire, but when she looked closer she could see that the black smoke unfurling from it was not exactly smoke. The wisps coming up from it were smooth and seemed both solid and ethereal at the same time. The object was hissing and shimmering, and looked to be powering the glowing elements wound throughout the carved circles and shapes. 

In various small circles interconnected by irregular lines, there were smaller charms of some sort. Some had three prongs, and others looked like crescents – all were held together by rough metal brackets. These also hissed and spat in their places. She felt compelled to touch them, to take them but some primitive protective place deep in her mind kept her hands away. Even the shadow forms kept their distance. She walked around the circle taking in all that her mind would allow her to comprehend. With each step, the shapes warped and shifted – it nearly hurt to look at them moving in impossible ways. She rounded the circle completely and the air suddenly seemed charged, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up and with no warning, the woman in the white gown appeared in the middle of the circle floating just above it. 

Lily was only just able to focus on her face long enough to see that her eyes were black – completely black. Her features constantly blurred and focused, shifting and coalescing into the face of a woman who looked to be about the age of Lily. There was no expression on her face that Lily could identify. Her fiery orange hair floated around her head in wisps and slow whorls, her face hiding and then peeping out through it. Her long white gown floated around her thin bare legs and dirty feet. She looked very much like the lighthouse woman, in fact but Lily couldn’t be entirely sure given the circumstances. She opened her mouth to speak, but the woman spoke first. 

At first Lily wasn’t sure what it was she was hearing – all she could sense was a chorus of what sounded like dozens of voices all speaking at once in tandem. The words themselves did not make sense and did not have any meaning for Lily. The voices became shrill and insect-like, a horrific high pitched burring that pushed painfully into hear eardrums.* Lily covered her ears instinctively and the woman paused as if puzzled. 

The woman opened her mouth to speak again, and Lily woke with start in her bed, leaned over the side of the bed and vomited violently, and twice more before she could make it to her bathroom. She was sweating, trembling and shaking, but felt better nearly immediately after her guts emptied. She splashed water on her face and checked the time. 4 a.m., not nearly time to wake, so she laid back in bed pulling the covers tight around her, chilled from the sweat. She was far too tired to clean up, too tired to get up again. She drifted somewhere fretfully between awake and asleep and in a few hours, decided it was time to start her day. 

She got out of bed feeling considerably better than she had left it earlier. She was a little later getting up than usual, so she sidestepped the mess in her room, planning to clean it up later, and went down to the kitchen. She prepared some tea and was getting a few things together for the old man’s lunch. There was an odd little tune in her head, something she had heard the Town Watch whistling from time to time and her mind was having trouble settling on any particular thing to think about. She was trying to remember the dream she had – she knew she had been back underground but the details were flitting away the harder she tried to recall them. 

She heard Mr. Merrock clear his throat behind her and she turned and said good morning. He looked different somehow – she turned away just as she realized what it was. Old Man Merrock had dyed his hair! No wonder he hid for a few days. She smiled to herself wondering what had possessed him to darken his hair. She could feel him staring her down, so she knew she had to say something. ““Forgive me Sir, as this may seem forward – but did you… _tint your hair?!_ ” she struggled not to chuckle, and he merely said “Humph”, grabbed his lunch bag and left. Ah, vanity. She chuckled and tutted to herself, shaking her head. 

She decided to stay in today. There were clothes that needed washing, cleaning to do - not to mention the mess in her room, and so on. She would find a few things to keep herself busy while she considered her next move with Lighthouse Lady. The day passed without incident, and Lily spent much of it after her work was done doing a great deal of nothing and rather enjoying it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If fractals made sound, this would be the sound they make: every syllable represented by every voice in every language (even pre-language and languages represented only visually) and combination of dialects stretching infinitely backward and forward through all time. You'd have to be an inter-dimensional being to even begin to understand or make sense of it. It would sound like chaos and in your mind look like impossible objects spinning into infinity.


	16. Part 3: Killing Time

**Prologue**

**1849 16th Day, Month of Rain - In a place outside of time**

For thousands of years it had existed freely without bounds through all space and time, unhindered by physical or metaphysical form or meaning. It was formless and dark, an Abyss that existed outside of any capability of human understanding. It did not think, nor did it feel – it simply _was._

The Void was but one of an infinite number of dimensions in which it existed and travelled, and it was in the Void that a single human misstep, a moment of ego and rabid determination brushed against the Abyss and infected it and opened it up to something it had not yet experienced: the chaos and instability of human emotion. In 1837, Delilah Copperspoon was sent to the Void by the Assassin Daud and trapped there in a seemingly endless purgatory. By 1849, by either unprecedented chance or incomprehensible design she found a way out, leaving a trail of dark thoughts and corruption in her fading wake.

In the face of the dark infinity of the Abyss, Delilah Copperspoon was insignificant, but her actions in the Void between 1837 and 1849 opened a tiny crack – an infinitesimal door between dimension and inter-dimension that the Abyss was able to seep into and take form.

Once there, the Abyss wandered in the Void, expanding in all directions and time to absorb all of the experiences and memories the place had to offer. Sensations became thoughts, thoughts became feelings, and feelings began to form intent, and intent became purpose. The Abyss began to shrink to accommodate an ever-focused desire, a desire cobbled together from all that it absorbed. It began to categorize and formulate things into images, and assign meaning to those images. For the first time it could ‘see’ physical forms from within its newly focused view.

The Abyss began to come to a sort of understanding about the hierarchy of something that had never before been a consideration: the distinctly lower-dimensional concept of ‘life’ and how it operated. It was unprepared for the residue of life that it found in the Void: the dangerously unstable and unpredictable flux of human emotion. There were pockets of intense human stains that seemed to emanate from a single source – connected by a power that the Abyss had yet to identify. It targeted and consumed the freshest and most intense of these emotions and memories, and each one became a part of it. It tasted desire, loneliness, madness. It savored the flavors of revenge, of despair and of regret. As it consumed, it grew smaller still – its infinite nature became contained and it picked up a path toward what it understood to be the source of the power.

As it followed the path, it absorbed the thick layers of emotion and desire trailed there by Delilah – the most powerful motivations of all: escape and a hunger for power and control, a violent desire to adjust reality to her liking. It was this taste that drove the Abyss like a virulent infection, greedily absorbing more and more and more as it went along, assimilating all within itself and excreting a swath of corruption and chaos behind as it shed its multidimensional matter into the Void.

Eventually, it came to what it understood to be the source of the power – the oldest part of the Void – a crumbling island unto itself. It was drawn there by a purpose that it understood no more than a virus understood why it tore through its host. It made its way onto the island gaining some semblance of form. It found itself smaller and denser, further collapsing in on itself as it made its way to the center of the island, bound now into a black amorphous shape sending out tendrils of itself, testing mobility as it began to crawl toward the source. Its insides writhed and coiled deeper inward within itself, becoming more compact as it drew the outer parts of its form closer into what it dimly perceived as ‘shape’. As it collapsed inward, a core began to coalesce inside of it – the distilled and compacted product of all that it had absorbed.

The Abyss had never experienced dimensional limitations and was having trouble moving, and its movements became labored and clumsy as it attempted to heave itself onto the small plane of power it found. It flopped heavily down, in the same spot that an anonymous boy found himself transformed into a god at the point of a knife more than four thousand years ago.

It convulsed with a rhythmic pulse that it did not understand. It only knew that the core of itself was ready to escape. It shed the last of its old existence in the form of a noxious fluid that seeped from the shell of its new form, unable to contain it any longer. It began to clench into itself, a violent shudder that caused its outsides to split and the Abyss felt, for the first time in its infinite existence – pain. There was a wet rip, and the Abyss birthed its own physical form: a tiny maggot-like creature feeling for the first time the cold surrounding it. It crawled out of what was left of its once infinite anti-mass and humped blindly out onto the slab. A single thought formed in its vestigial brain, a thought that became a single word, and word that became a name that it did not yet understand: “Daud.”


	17. Chapter 17

The tiny maggot felt the pain of sudden and accelerated growth as it writhed on the slab – it pulled from the strongest source of power that it had found yet – a source that was connected by three dimensions: the human world, the Void and a much older dimension, a nameless one somewhere that the Abyss could only comprehend from its limited input as ‘below’. It fixated on what was left of this source known as Rose. The Abyss found itself taking a rough humanoid form, and as it grew it became more self-aware with every passing second. It took its full form quickly – a blank featureless, transparent humanoid, ripe and ready for imprinting. It sensed that something was coming, and a newly-formed sense of self-preservation told it to hide. 

There was something here in the Void, something that would perceive the Abyss as a threat. It felt a quickening in the atoms around it, an electrical pulse that told that Abyss that something was imminent – it slid off the slab and crept behind a tangled mass of a tree that looked to be straining to spread itself further than the ancient bark of its skin would allow. It watched as a swirl of black particles formed, the particles taking shape into black shards and with a barely audible ‘pop’ the Abyss saw what it immediately recognized from its engorged memories as The Outsider. The Abyss shivered from its hiding place, willing itself to become imperceptible. It would have done so entirely, were it not for a single thread that seemed to stubbornly keep it just within perception of The Outsider and it was then that the Abyss understood the implications of the slab and that it had bound itself in some way with this entity that it saw looking around with his black eyes and unreadable expression. The Abyss did not immediately sense anything human about The Outsider and was unable to gauge the threat. It shrank back further as it began to understand and experience fear. If The Outsider sensed its presence, he didn’t make it known. He simply disappeared as quickly as he had appeared, leaving only quickly dissolving twists of black eddies where he had been standing the moment before. 

The Abyss stayed crouched and hidden for a time until it could no longer feel the atoms vibrating around it. It found its way off the island, and headed in a direction where the atoms were still and undisturbed. 

Eventually it found itself drawn to the part of the Void where it most intensely felt what was left of Rose. It looked at the slabs of broken and disjointed chunks of land, taking note of the physical manifestations of her most recent memories: a lighthouse hanging on a disembodied cliff, a haze and unclear dark-eyed figure, an expanse of water, facades of buildings larger and smaller depending on their meaning to her, and a child – a girl child. At the last, it saw the remnants of Rose sucked through the narrow-bladed gaps in the maw of a massive creature that The Abyss could identify as only ‘from below’. It spent some time in this part of the Void piecing together what it could of what it came to understand was a town called Baleton. It absorbed every aspect that it could, until a clearer picture formed in its mind and the memories of Rose and the Abyss became as one. 

Once it had absorbed all it could of Baleton, the Abyss moved on to the mystery of its first word. It knew ‘Daud’ was a name, gleaned from a particularly malignant memory of the witch Delilah, but sensed that it was more than just a name. It was able to sense that ‘Daud’ was connected to Delilah and to others through a shared power from which its source was The Outsider. It was a thread of the Void itself, a tether between the human world and this one that manifested in the form of a mark which could be used to draw powers from the Void. It knew ‘Daud’ was marked, and it made a point to find out the significance of ‘Daud’ being its first word. Why ‘Daud’ and not any of the others bearing the mark? 

It reached out with its mind into the Void, and began to study everything that Daud had left behind of himself each time he crossed over into this place. In time, through studying what it could of Daud, it understood the significance of its first word, and a plan began to form. Its goal was simple, and everything and everyone it needed for it was in Baleton. It just needed to find a way in.


	18. Chapter 18

The Abyss was able to figure out that in limited dimensions, coming and going required a finite linear process that involved portals or doors. It sent its thoughts out in a wide scope, scanning around for an atomic eddy that indicated a clear interdimensional pathway. It found many, but in Baleton it found only two: one that led to a place with no humans – the ‘below’, and thus mostly useless for the time being, but the other… the other would take it exactly where it wanted to go. It hesitated, and then just at the right moment it entered the eddy.

It took five years of reverse-time to travel through the eddy. The Abyss arrived in Baleton on the other end of the eddy in 1844, and created a doorway into the world from the matter it found there – the old dry boards under the stairs subtly bent and twisted as The Abyss came though, leaving a shadow of its interdimensional self in the shapes of the warped wood. At the exit point, it was immediately snapped downward with an overwhelming force that it did not understand, a force which seemed to pin it to the gritty surface underneath it. It was with some struggle and adjustment that it was able to ascertain that this heaviness was ‘normal’ for this dimension. It felt oddly exposed in the dust and dark and created a small room around itself, a room that did not indicate its presence in any way that could be seen clearly from the outside. It was a good place to hide for now, as the Abyss began the process of transforming the clear jelly-like substance of itself into Rose.

It searched in its collection of Rose memories to bring a form and final shape to the featureless transparent bag of living meat that it had built from its initial understanding of ‘human shape’. It was able to piece together its insides from the final indifferent and detached memories of the dying Rose, who had seen them splayed out on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. The outsides began to form from the memories of Rose’s perception of herself. Finally, it was satisfied that it had become Rose, and let itself out into the larger room. It was cluttered and dark and Rose crept cautiously out.

Suddenly, the lights popped on and the thing that was Rose heard what sounded to it like a snorting and honking, something like a slurping and huffing broken by sharp ticks and clicks, a disgusting wet guttural sound. It said

“Aye I got yer now, yer bastard – heard yer down here, I did, and …”

The words died on the man’s lips as he took in the horror that stood in front of him. Rose looked at him, realizing that compared to the man – Rose had misjudged human appearance considerably. The thing that was Rose had a head at least two sizes too big for its spindly body, bugging bulging eyes and long sharp canine teeth pointing out under its jutting top lip. All of its corners: shoulder blades, elbows, hipbones and knees jutted out in stark relief from the otherwise flattened planes of its form. Its middle was blown out, with loops of lacerated gut hanging out between sharp jags of splintered bone. Fiery orange thick frizz puffed out from its head, with no particular direction or style. Its features frantically slid and rearranged themselves around its amorphous face – eyes, nose, mouth sliding around as if on a thin slick of oil as it tried to find a semblance of something that would look more proportioned. Rose learned then that self-perception and objective perception were two entirely different things. It opened its mouth to speak, to say something to the shock-still man in front of it. A piercing chirring sound buzzed out of its shifting mouth and the man turned and ran. As he got to the stairs, he chanced a look back and there was no monster there – he saw nothing but his own footprints in the dust. He knew then what he needed to do.

He ran up the stairs, swearing he would never touch another drop of Hemlock mash in his life. He packed a few things hurriedly, took one last look around him at the Baleton General Merch store, and then locked the door behind him – abandoning the store and everything in it for good then and there. He hurried down to the docks, disheveled and disoriented – his mind still processing the shock of the hole punched through his sanity. He boarded a ship going south thinking… Karnaca. Sunny and warm, no Hemlock mash, no monsters. His mind refused to bring up the image of Rose ever again, but he was never able to completely undo the damage.

Michael Vehkbride spent the rest of his days running a black market shop in the Cyria Gardens district in Karnaca spending long lonely evenings scribbling madly in journal after journal about the world he was never able to unsee through the hole left in his sanity - page after page about the trials and tribulations of a strange-looking dying god ruling over a doomed land that lay in the shadow of a giant hollow floating rock in the sky. And so the rest of his days went with only the occasional mishap and brush with oddities.

After Vehkbride left, Rose decided to stay close to the abandoned shop for a while, spending the better part of a year invisibly observing the people of Baleton, and eventually was able to cobble together a passable set of features for its new meatbag shell. It learned to speak the grunting syllables of the lower dimension beings, scratch the images of the language onto paper – leaving bits of its practice hidden here and there, folded into books, stuffed into random cracks and chinks throughout Baleton. It learned to move with the relative ease of the humans with the limited capabilities it now had. It was time to move on.

The day after it left, Daud bought the shop and started the renovations for Stridside Curious Goods.


	19. Chapter 19

**1845**

 

Rose spent most of its time hiding in the Traehorne Castle ruins, and sneaking out to the Lighthouse in the evenings, drawn there by a vague desire that it would never fully understand. Often, it would dim its form to a shadow and skulk about Baleton absorbing what it could of the people there – discarding useless information and absorbing the rest. It spent much time in that shadow form observing Daud as he renovated his store and was only mildly disturbed that he had found the small secret eddy-room under the stairs in the basement. Rose knew it would now need to use the other eddy in Baleton to make its way back to the Void, should it need to return there.

Rose learned much about Daud in its time observing him. It was watchful, and plucked here and there from his memories and experiences as inconspicuously as possible. The Void was strong in him, but it was hidden and vague – hard for Rose to access and study. In Daud’s basement, Rose felt the Void radiating from a set of intriguing charms cobbled together from bits of bone, metal and wire, and the thick flat runes that Daud would sometimes take from his safe in the evenings. It watched him turn the charms and runes about in his hands, tracing grooves and edges evidently without feeling the Void seeping from them still. Even with Daud’s tightly locked mind, Rose was able to glean from his memories and thoughts the general purpose of the runes and charms and put this knowledge to use as part of its plan. Rose was impressed by the degree to which Daud had gone in denying the Void powers. He had convinced himself through sheer will that they had faded to nothing. Rose knew better. There was one particular ability that Daud had that Rose was most interested in.

It had learned in general that Daud had the ability to share his powers and replicate the Void in others who were not marked, albeit to a lesser extent, but it needed to know more – something more specific about that power that it could use to its own ends. It needed a clearer picture of his powers, and it began thinking of ways to force them back into the forefront of his brain so that it could begin the process that it had set out to this dimension to do. It watched, waited and learned.

At first Rose didn’t realize the implications of what it learned through watching Daud’s many experiments in his small lab under the stairs, but it eventually made a connection between the metaphysical sharing of powers and the biological sharing of traits. It learned through Daud that it was possible for biological forms to replicate parts of themselves into new biological forms through a fairly uncomplicated system of reproduction. It was greatly interested in how Daud was able to manipulate the reproductive process to achieve outcomes that seemed otherwise unlikely without his intervention. Rose found this information very useful indeed, as it absorbed it into its collection of memories.

Would it be able to pass _itself_ along in a similar way using what it had learned from Daud? It intended to find out. Daud was only part of this puzzle. It needed more: it needed a viable host as well. It spent the next few months unconcerned with the passage of time, learning the finer points of clothing, appearance and fine-tuning its conversation abilities. In time, it had learned to pair its expressions with its language and became fairly passable as one of the many faces that drifted in and out of Baleton, coming and going from one place to another – largely anonymous.


	20. Chapter 20

**1852-3**

Rose spent some time in other parts of the Isles, primarily in Dunwall – the place in the Isles where the eddy connections to the Void were most plentiful, watching with great interest some of the events of the coup by Delilah Copperspoon unfold, learning what it could from Delilah and the Marked as it followed along intermittently from the shadows. It needed to know what threat, if any, it would face from them when it launched its plan. While impressed with the human use of the mark, Rose wasn't particularly concerned or worried. Delilah was clearly not going to be a threat going forward, and it had other plans for dealing with the Outsider once its plan was in place. For now, it needed to gauge what it could from those in this world. 

It was able to learn more about the connection between the charms and runes and the Void, and how it might best use them for its purpose. It knew now that it needed its own charms and runes that had some sort of a connection specifically to Daud’s Void energy. It travelled in the shadows unseen, searching each place that it picked up Daud’s scent, his Void trail faint, but still perceptible. It gathered what it could from piles of rubble left over from the rebuilding of the Rudshore District – finding what it could of Daud in the broken bits of brick, plaster and wood that had been discarded in dump sites not far from their original location. It wandered the grounds of a newly-rebuilt manor, where Daud's scent still lingered, intertwined with the sweet feral stink of the witches in the darkest and dampest corners of the old crypt, and followed a fainter trail on the freshly-landscaped grounds until it could no longer sense him. It was able to find what it needed from these places, and moved on to the next place and the next - gathering what was left of the charms and runes Daud had overlooked or abandoned. It didn't matter that he had not taken them into his possession - they merely required his proximity to leave Rose exactly what it was she needed from them. 

It was not difficult for Rose to find Lily. It searched its memories and found little by way of a visual clue but was able to identify her in a much more fundamental way. It had been stealthily observing the Baleton business district that morning, watching as Daud made his way from his home and across the park to his store. It watched with increasing interest as a small lean female figure with some sort of blade in her hand made her way up behind Daud, sneaking and then lunging at his belt before being caught and thrown to the ground with considerable force. On some deep level, Rose felt the impact through the remnants of Rose’s memories – it experienced a surge of fear mixed with anger, an urge to protect. It was then that Rose realized that it had found the girl child, no longer a child - from Rose’s memories. The inherent bond it felt with Lily would come in handy. It needed a host with which it could bond and infiltrate on a fundamental level, otherwise its plan wasn’t likely to work.

It watched the interactions between Daud and Lily with great interest over the following days and then months. From the shroud of its shadow form, it studied their patterns and habits. It followed and noted Lily’s cycles and rhythms and began calculations to predict the likelihood of there being any natural course of reproductive behaviors between Daud and Lily but found none. Having spent some time in observation at the ‘Flask and other places along the waterfront and beyond in Baleton it had learned that procreation, or at the very least the methods and delivery of such were a common practice in humans regardless of whether or not it resulted in offspring. It knew from Rose’s cobbled together memories that the act of sex between human beings was more than a simple transaction or delivery process. It had learned that sex could be something that could be used to give, or used to take. Since it was clear that this act would not transpire on its own between Daud and Lily, it decided to take another avenue – one that would result in what it needed from them both. What it would not be able to take advantage of happening naturally, it would force by other methods. Rose didn’t care either way. It just needed these particular hosts and it intended to use them at either their will, or its own.

Over the next year, Rose planned and plotted its experiment: to change the course of reality by _infiltrating_ it, and replicating itself from within it. It would be born again and again entangled within human matter, passed like a viral cordycep through generation after generation. It intended to rip Daud’s arcane bond from within and fuse it to his molecular makeup, forcing it out of him to be passed along as a trait to the seed of itself that Rose intended to implant within Lily. From Daud’s arcane bond deeply embedded into the very molecules of their makeup and the inherent Void nature that would come from Rose, humans born with these traits would be able to spread the Void to others at will, if not through procreation then through Marking others with the ease that until this point had only been the privilege of a largely indifferent and remote god – the Outsider, who stayed safely in the boundaries of his own dimensional prison, refusing to escape or make a larger place for himself.

Rose had no intention of being like the Outsider, and planned to outdo Delilah in ways that made the simple witch look like a child with her clumsy and ineffective paintings. It intended to ride in the blood and guts of humanity, navigating synapse and gristle alike, growing larger and more powerful as it assimilated them by the hundreds and then thousands until it became as one with all of them, a living hive of Void entity that no one or no thing would be able to stop. It wouldn’t just change reality – it would _become_ reality itself, and then move on to the next dimension and the next.


	21. Chapter 21

**1855**

 

Finding the second eddy in Baleton proved to be easy enough for Rose to find. It ventured out in its shadow form further and further toward the Wilds, sending out waves of energy and pulling them back to savor whatever it could catch on the bitter wind. One afternoon, it found itself at the Strid, the strongest source of energy it could find that signaled an eddy to the Void. Rose figured that was part of the reason why Baleton interred their dead here, though none would be able to articulate it. It spent some time maneuvering first up one side of the Strid, and then then down the other unable to pinpoint the exact location. It realized that the eddy must be somewhere under the rushing current, and jumped in.

The powerful currents sucked it down and down, harder than it could have imagined but Rose let the currents take it down – its curiosity outweighing any reservations it may have had. The solid rush of water broke some ways down, and Rose found itself plunging down on a rushing stream of a waterfall where it finally crashed down into the turbulent water beneath. The turbulence ended abruptly a few feet from the drop point, the water going still and thick around it. Rose surfaced and took a more solid form and waded its way to the edge of the subterranean lake that it had found itself in. All around it was a sickly greenish-blue glow, seeming to emanate from no particular source. There were squirming plants of some kind growing out of the black muck of the water’s edge, each topped with a writhing black misshapen bulb that undulated and collapsed into and out of itself in a hypnotic motion.

Rose could hear something shifting and surfacing in the thick water. It squatted down at the edge of the water and focused its attention on the beings it saw just under the water’s surface. Though they did not appear human, at least not the humans it had experienced thus far – Rose recognized their origins as such. Some old god, a many-tentacled relic from another dimension that hid itself somewhere in this dark underworld had incorporated and warped these humans into an image of itself. The limbs protruding from their long, fat soft bodies were vestigial suggestions of the arms and legs that they once had, more flipper and fin than limb. Their faces were flat and broad, with fat black lidless protruding eyes. Flabby thick pale lips only partly covered the rows of sharp teeth that lined their loose jaws. Rows of dark green wrinkled flesh ridged their heads, ending in sets of wide gills where ears would have been. Rose could sense their thoughts, inarticulate and dark – a collection of vaguely human and interdimensional chatter that was silently sent and received amongst themselves as they fed on Baleton’s dead. Though it could understand their communication, it held no interest or meaning for Rose.

Rose stood and looked around at its surroundings sending out pings of energy to locate the eddy. The pings bounced off of the walls of buildings that Rose admired for their qualities – qualities of design and meaning that were far past human understanding or comprehension. It recognized the remnants of that ancient civilization, its inhabitants twisted and reduced to the vaguely amphibic creatures that travelled through the still glowing waters.

As Rose made its way toward the source of the eddy, it took note of the structure of the underground world. It appeared to be roughly circular, with a large tower stretching up further than the human eye would be able to see. It was able to ascertain that the eddy was at the top of the tower, near the underbelly of the Strid’s bankside surfaces. Rose made its way to the tower, and as it got nearer it began to see interdimensional creatures milling around on the paths and walkways. They were unremarkable creatures, more humanoid shaped than amphibian and Rose knew that they were not of the same origin as the frog-fish things it saw swimming in the water. While they lived harmonically in this underworld with the frog-fish men, it was evident that they did not intermingle or interact with them.

The interdimensional creatures seemed more of fire than of water, and clearly had never been human - they were gray eyeless things the color of spent ash, and their faces were in various stages of tentacle growth reflecting the hand of the ancient god that warped them into their tortured shapes. Some had a large irregular hole where eyes would be on a human, the visible brain glowing low, hot and red. Others seemed to be more evolved – with a fat tentacle bulging out from the hole. The longer and thicker the tentacle, the more misshapen the body. There were some that were far older and more developed, their thick hairless bodies only a suggestion of a human shape – their faces a mass of thick heavy tentacles that reached down to their feet and sluggishly swayed with each shuffling step. Their thoughts were more complex than the frog-fish creatures – their thoughts were human-like but jumbled and confused. They all moved slowly and silently, neither a threat nor a concern to Rose as it made its way to the tower. Rose did not think this would be the case should a human find its way down here. From the many dimensions that Rose had travelled through, it knew that only a particularly Void-sensitive human would see nothing more of these creatures than darting and shifting shadows, but would be in far more danger.

Rose reached the tower, noting the well-cloaked entrance at the bottom but ignoring it. There was nothing in the tower that Rose cared about – it could feel that this was where the old god was hiding deep in the tower in complete darkness surrounded by the many mysteries and riddles that it had collected over time to study and learn. Rose knew that it was aware of its presence, but simply did not find Rose interesting enough to explore. Rose crawled easily up the side of the tower with a quick lizard-like precision, darting around the various stairs and landings that seemed to be randomly placed around the perimeter of the tower.

At the top of the tower, Rose found what it was looking for and far more. The eddy was there, barely a shimmer in the twilight-green glow. Rose drew from it, pulling tendrils of the Void into itself – shivering with the sensation of power that flowed through itself. It walked the top of the tower for a while, drawing on the various memories and ideas it had devoured in the Void. It focused on a diagram that was hazy in its memories at first, but quickly began to take a clearer form in Rose’s mind. It studied the glyphs and symbols, committing to memory their shape and form. It closed its eyes, dropped to its knees and began to carve the image in its mind into the soft sandy stone.

After some time, Rose opened its eyes and looked at the large diagram that it had carved deeply into the roof of the tower. It would appear to any human eyes that saw it to be a flat circle with various shapes carved within, but in fact it was spherical with flat oblong planes intersecting the sphere at points that corresponded with the seemingly simple carved shapes. Many-sided impossible anti-matter figures filled the space in the sphere, the reflections of the underworld glow off of their many planes and intersections throwing down swaths of shimmering glowing blue glyphs radiating out from the circle in a series of irregular spokes. Rose reached up to the fragile skin of matter holding the sphere together and gave it a spin, testing the tonal sounds that it created as it simultaneously sucked in and blew out the glowing air that surrounded it, forcing the drafts through complex tunnels created within the sphere by the continuous collisions of matter and anti-matter. Rose continued to carefully tune the sphere, narrowing the helix of chaotic sound first to seventeen notes and from there down to six notes – their sound somewhere between the keening of a whale and the rich but distorted tones of ancient sundered bells. Rose found the correct frequency as the six notes finally locked into place and the sounds coalesced into silent interdimensional harmony. It stepped back and admired its work. The sphere continued to spin almost lazily on the drifts coming from the eddy, the sound emanating from the sphere in silent waves and subliminal aural pulses, spitting off black motes and sparks of pure Void energy. The sphere would serve its purpose soon, but for now Rose simply stood back and watched the sphere spin, lost in its own dark thoughts. Soon it would be ready, and when the sphere opened the doorway into the minds of the hosts, Rose planned to waste no time getting inside.

Above-ground, lightning pulsed in harmony behind heavy black clouds, the sharp astringent air cut through with ozone that barely hid the copper-dead smell of the Void. It had been many years since Baleton had seen a storm of that magnitude. Many old-timers turned restlessly in their beds, reminded of the time years ago that Castle Traehorne was crushed in the wrath of hundreds of lightning strikes.

**********

Rose had much to do still to prepare for the experiment – now roughly two weeks away. It needed to transition into the subconscious of the host and possess it from within. It had seen fleeting memories of possession in the Void, but noted that it was not only brief but not nearly as complete or powerful as Rose needed it to be. The tuned sphere would not only open the door to the host’s mind, but would give Rose a much greater scope of possession in the process. The sphere would amplify the ability, and any Void ability for that matter to whatever degree it needed. It knew better than to start with Daud, though. Rose was well aware that one misstep with Daud, and it would all be over. It could not risk losing its one chance at taking the arcane bond. No, better to take him by surprise. It would start with Lily.

Rose spent the next two weeks observing Lily from its shadow stance, watching her comings and goings and taking note of any changes in her chemistry that may interfere with Rose’s plan. It watched her eat, sleep and bathe. It watched her in the evenings, out on the balcony smoking and staring off into nothing. Lily did not appear to have much of a set schedule, so Rose was not able to predict her whereabouts or sleeping patterns on a given day. It decided to drift in and out, checking in at intervals.

The first night Rose entered Lily’s dreams, it decided it would stay dim and hidden in her thoughts and chose to observe and see what it could learn. The way in was simple enough. The sphere’s tonal alignment held strong at the top of the tower. Rose stepped through the membrane of the sphere, maneuvering easily around and through the multitude of interdimensional objects filling the sphere. It reached out through the sphere, locating Lily and then stepped into Lily’s dream.

The world of Lily’s dreams bore a passing resemblance to the Void. Objects that existed in reality took on a warped appearance in the dreams. Perspective and dimensions were mere suggestion, and the physical rules of movement and interaction bent and twisted with ease teasing around the edges of other dimensions buried deep within Lily’s brain. Rose searched out first for anything that would tell her more about Daud, but found little. Daud was primarily a background image in Rose’s thoughts, with no particular emphasis on him. It could read an underlying curiosity about him – through Lily’s drifting thoughts, Rose picked up on Lily’s ability to sense the Void. It had learned that some humans were sensitive to it, some more than others. It also learned that Lily knew Daud only as Herne Merrock, and had no idea that he was, in fact, the Assassin Daud. Rose took note of this, and absorbed it as part of its plan. Rose knew Lily would never leave Herne Merrock’s side, but perhaps if she knew it was _Daud_...

It saw other fleeting images, broken and incomplete – of Rose Everleigh. It was not able to see Rose’s face clearly through Lily’s thoughts. Perhaps that was best for what it needed to do. Rose had long learned which perceptions of Rose to avoid and which to absorb. It had borrowed just enough of Rose to not quite look like her. It decided that when the time came to contact Lily as Rose, it would do so in this amorphous form and skirt the edges of her memory without fulling tapping it.

It saw clearer images of a person Rose had seen during its many days and nights spent observing Baleton and the comings and goings of its people: Hilliard Humphreys, or H.H. as Lily knew him. It sensed fear, and a little sadness from Lily. It knew that Lily hid from him, and why. Rose had a growing certainty that it would be able to use H.H. to its advantage and planned to pay him a visit very soon. Rose would need to separate Lily and Daud soon after the experiment, and H.H. would be able to play a significant part in this should Lily not be quite convinced to leave Daud.

It did not see much else of interest in Lily’s dreams, but allowed itself to be pulled through the gentle currents of her sleep, letting the images and memories wash over it. Rose sent out feelers to the deeper corners of Lily’s mind, seeing what kind of host it had to work with. There was nothing there, no memories that related to reproductive processes outside of the regular and predictable hormonal cycles. It would need to draw on what it had learned of Rose’s experiences to guide the process. It began to tap on the synapses, sending faint hormonal wisps throughout Lily’s brain – not too much, just enough to start the priming process. It had enough time to build up to what it needed.

As the days passed, Rose entered Lily’s dreams more frequently – tapping harder, pulsing a little more insistently. Lily felt this as a restlessness, a nameless longing that she couldn’t identify. Rose decided that it was time to bring Lily into the world under Baleton. It was simple enough to weave the interdimensional transition into a dream state that Lily would not comprehend as reality. Rose wanted to see how she would react and to see how the creatures there reacted to her presence. It would not do to simply drop her into place at the top of the tower. Rose felt Lily’s inherent sense of curiosity, a desire to explore and ride at the very edge of danger, and so decided to let her find the tower on her own. Rose tracked Lily’s movements each night in her dreams and observed the behavior of the creatures closely. It was able to confirm Lily’s faint connection to the Void – otherwise Lily and the creatures would not sense one another. Rose was unsure how Lily came to be connected to the Void, but suspected that the Outsider had likely visited her dreams a time or two, though it couldn’t find solid evidence of it. No matter – that Lily had that sensitivity was useful enough.

Within a few days, Rose had tracked Lily to the tower. She was nearly there, and it was time. Rose had primed Lily steadily over the previous days, stirring her restlessness and slight unease. It had assured itself of the exact window of time to strike, the time where the experiment was not likely to fail. All it needed to do now was to set the stage at the top of the tower for Daud.


	22. Chapter 22

****

**1855, the 16th day, Month of Rain, 1855, mid-day and into the night**

Rose had now long known about the connection between the runes and bonecharms and the Void. Daud had left plenty of himself in Dunwall and in the Void for Rose to pick up all that she needed to draw Daud into its trap. From its observations and invasions into Daud’s emotions and memories, Rose knew that at Daud’s cold core lay an inherent need to protect his own. It knew that this could work to its advantage to draw him in.

Down under Baleton, Rose prepared the sphere and ran the plan over and over in its patchwork brain in a loop, scrutinizing each second for a misstep or something it may have overlooked. It found a very low margin of error, and was pleased. As it was looping the plan in its head, it lay the bonecharms that it had acquired - some corrupt, inside the shapes cast by the sphere. The fit for each was a near puzzle-piece precision, and Rose had no doubt that they would work exactly as intended. In the middle, it lay a rune – and it immediately began to vibrate and whine, sending out its frequency along the spokes of the circle to each of the bonecharms. The rune began tuning itself to the sphere, and the bonecharms followed suit, the corrupted charms chiming in darker minor tones. 

The pitch of the sphere changed slightly, edging up by a nearly imperceptible degree and the harmony picked up a thread of syncopated vibration spun off from the charms and rune. The greenish glowing air took on a dark blue heaviness, the atoms becoming engorged with antimatter and shedding off wisps of ozone and an acrid coppery smell. The Void-dense air amplified the tones, cramming the atmosphere with a deep aural pulse. 

Rose stepped into the sphere, and slipped through the warm folds of Lily’s sleeping brain – pushing through until it pierced her consciousness. Rose pulled Lily back down under the Strid and rode along inside her head as Lily stood at the bottom of the tower. Once the girl started climbing, Rose left Lily’s conscious mind – and left behind an image in Lily’s mind that it wished for Lily to witness: the terrifying visage of Daud’s own self-image. A man with the heart and guts of a wolf, a wolf-man bathed in blood, and dressed in the dark scarlet uniform of a killer. Rose pulled itself back into the sphere to set the trap for Daud. 

Rose began tapping hard into Lily’s subconscious, unleashing wave after wave of hormones priming and prepping the host to assure a successful transfer. It was frustrated that Lily did not seem to know what to do with this stimuli, so Rose tapped into its memory bank and began to move and sway – guiding Lily’s movements across her body in the darkness of her room, even as Lily’s conscious self watched Rose from the top of the tower from an imagined hiding place. It drove Lily’s unconscious body harder and harder toward peak until it began to respond and ripen. From the sphere, Rose could hear Lily’s body moving, her mouth making noises – Rose guided Lily’s hands using what it could of Rose’s memories. It did not understand the nuances of the motions, but merely targeted what it interpreted as the most intense movements to achieve the reaction it needed: a hand at the throat, another moving amongst the host’s various parts. It heard Lily’s voice grow louder and the thrashing grew more intense. 

Rose sensed that Daud had heard and waited for him to come to Lily’s room. As if on cue, the door to Lily’s room burst open silently and Daud stepped in. Now, to guide him to her. It spoke using Lily’s vocal cords, and spoke his name with an obscene invitation – sure that it would shock him into re-opening his Void abilities, and perhaps intrigue him to come closer… 

“Lily” it heard Daud croak and then sharper.. “Lily” and as if a switch had been pulled, the sphere broke its rhythm and wobbled, the tones collapsing into cacophony and the connection to Lily was suddenly gone, just as Rose had felt the Void violently awake and surge through Daud. 

Unshaken, Rose gestured within the sphere, quickly resetting the tonal balance and the sphere once again spun evenly. Rose began pushing through again into their world, following Daud as he dragged Lily up the stairs. Some of the previous connection clearly held, as Lily still had much of the appearance that Rose had assigned her. As Daud pulled Lily into his room and threw open his window, it was then that Rose could clearly see the Mark now on his hand – glowing hot and bright. Rose needed to act quickly now. It pushed fully into Lily, sending her conscious mind down below the Strid while it made efficient use of her host body. Rose blinked up behind him, intending to catch him before he could react. Rose gestured within the sphere again, bringing the tones down to their lowest pitch, the throbbing sound like a giant heart filling the air around Daud. Daud would not be easy to manipulate – Rose could see that clearly now. It needed him conscious, but pliable. It focused its energy and entered Daud through the back of his skull, at the base of his brain where the root of the Void energy lay. It immediately began the process of shutting down his dangerous abilities one by one until it had isolated the one it needed – the arcane bond. 

It was not expecting what it found in Daud’s mind. Rose’s thoughts were one with Daud’s - interpreted only as hissing whispers with little sense or meaning. The inside of Daud was different than what Rose had come to expect of the human psyche. Where most humans were filled with large smooth interlocking pockets of mundane random patterns of thought and emotion, Daud was fractured inside - more animal than human. His thoughts and emotions were packed tightly into widely-spaced compartments with no reason or evident pattern. It found emotion in places that it would not have expected, and found very little by way of anything approaching a human capacity for intimacy. The only lust it found in any corner of Daud was that for blood. The softness of a woman in his arms held no meaning unless it was spiking her through with something sharp, tearing her guts and spilling her blood. It would make do with that, failing all else. Rose set about the process of having the host remove its clothing, and it probed his brain trying to tap and prime it the way it had with Lily. Whereas Lily was ripe and ready for the transfer, Daud was able to dodge and hide from within his brain, hiding in the shadows of his shattered psyche just out of Rose’s sight. Just as well – Rose had no interest in that. 

It touched his body with Lily’s compliant hand, feeling the muscles of his body tightly coiled under a layer of only slightly age-softened skin. Rose could feel Daud fighting it off, and redoubled its efforts and turned to an edge of violence that it felt Daud would respond most strongly to. It tore away Daud’s shirt, and started in on his pants. As it was untying the laces of his breeches, it could feel the proximity of the bond from the inside and the outside and leaned forward to taste what it could of it, using Lily’s tongue to connect – to experience the physical taste of the Void as it tasted it from the inside. Rose felt an immediate wave of revulsion flooding Daud’s insides, and Rose unleashed a hormonal wave inside Daud’s brain to bring his resistance down. It pulled his pants down with a crouch, and then stood while pulling the gown from Lily’s body, leaving it naked and glowing in the moonlight. Rose realized that this was not having the effect it had hoped. It needed him to unleash himself. It looked down at Daud’s Mark and grabbed his hand. With Lily’s tongue, it licked the Mark savoring the metallic taste of the Void. It looked into Daud’s eyes through Lily’s and with a semi-human voice burred… “Daud… Daud’, and again – for a second or two, Daud successfully threw Rose out of his mind breaking the Posession. In the next second, Rose was back in – the sphere barely registered the atonal jarring of his break. Rose unleashed the full load of its memories of Daud’s kills into his brain, flooding it with the smell and taste of blood, the sounds of dying and the sounds of ripping guts. It felt Daud beginning to ripen under this extreme priming. Its plan was nearly complete, and Rose began to chuckle – a throaty deep burbling that Daud could not seem to bear. Daud threw himself on Rose’s host like an animal, pinning the body firmly down and Rose began throwing every memory into Daud’s conscious that would force him closer to release. It plucked a memory from a different timeline – an image of Delilah choking on her own blood, her skull impaled by Daud’s blade. It flooded Daud’s brain with the memories of the rawest of Rose’s desires, pushing him further as it bloomed inside of him, tearing at his insides with a sharp-thorned determination. At last he was primed and ready – Daud pulled the remnants of his clothing off, and positioned himself on the host, and somewhere distantly Rose heard him whisper – ‘forgive me’, and then Rose felt Daud tear into the host with a violent plunge. Rose pulled up its memories from Rose of this act, and guided the host body accordingly – it watched in detached fascination as the host bodies acted and reacted once flooded fully with hormonal desire. The experiment was nearly complete. It needed to force Daud to a finish. 

Rose could feel Daud reaching the edge and reached deeper for another alternate memory – this being Lurk, the only other human Daud had come close to having any semblance of human feeling for. It showed Daud what he wanted to see on some deep bloodthirsty level: himself killing Lurk, skewering her guts and watching her bleed out. Revenge, vengeance – blood… Daud was nearly there, snapping at the host like a rabid animal, and Rose flooded his brain with another wave of hormones, pushing him toward a physical release. It needed a particularly intense memory to do this – and from his brain, locked in a distant compartment of his brain it found Jessamine, the mother of the Empress of Dunwall. A trembling black flower, Jessamine – her softness a subconscious affront to Daud, who hadn’t known how badly he had wanted to crush it until he had her dying against him, her split belly a mere bolster’s length from his rough hand already slick and dripping with her blood. Rose could feel it now – Daud was quickening from within. Rose gestured again within the sphere, and it grabbed the Void point of the arcane bond from Daud, and using what it had learned from him – in a mere second, spliced the bond into the burgeoning matter that was bubbling deep within him – the bits of being, his makeup, now embedded with the bond in every atom. The splice was a success and Rose released him at last. The bond tore from Daud on a deep level, leaving him roaring with an incomprehensible pain as it spilled out into the waiting host. Rose felt the moment when the experiment was a success, and Rose's sense of satisfaction washed through the host as Rose raised Lily’s legs around Daud’s waist and allowed a deep release that rivaled any of those that Rose knew from its cobble-together memories. 

Nearly immediately, Daud was slipping away – Rose looked up with shock through Lily’s eyes as it watched Daud pulled out of its Possession and into the Void by the Outsider. Rose jumped up to follow, baring Lily’s teeth in a determination to catch him before he could be pulled through but it was too late. 

Rose immediately released Lily’s body, clearing it of all the physical effects of the possession (except one, of course) and sent her consciousness abruptly back up from under the Strid. The transition was brutal and immediate. It knew that this would make Lily violently ill, but it was not concerned - no illness would undo what Rose had managed to plant inside of Lily, so Rose left her for the time being. It was time to move on to the next part of the plan. 


	23. Chapter 23

Rose decided to spend some time at the lighthouse, again drawn to it by some deep longing that nagged at parts of its brain. First, however, it had a delivery to make. Rose had acquired a pristine copy of The Knife of Dunwall from its time in Dunwall on its search for Daud’s trail, and intended to send Daud a subtle message to start the separation process. It plucked a flower from its jacket, and focused on it as it first wilted and then dried to a crisp. It tucked the dried flower into the book, knowing that Daud would find it and begin to erase any doubt of a coincidence. It used one of its old scraps of paper that it had accumulated in its practice of learning human written language to wrap the book up like an innocent package. Daud had heard his given name a few times during the Posession, and Rose knew that he was already deeply unsettled, though he didn’t seem to show it so far. As vague as it was, this package would certainly do the trick. It could have been far more specific in its message, but it didn’t need Daud to do more than speculate at this point.

Rose made its way down from its home in the castle ruins toward the Baleton business district. It was approaching the later part of the afternoon, but it was certain that Daud would be at his store carrying on with business as usual. For a moment, it was certain Daud had seen it while he was looking out of his window but Rose quickly ascertained that he was in fact, staring blankly out into nothing evidently deep in thought. Rose dimmed itself slightly, and darted quickly past the doorway of his store, dropping the package with a deliberate slam and then moved quickly on and made its way back up the path toward the Lighthouse. 

Walking had become much easier to it over the years as it had learned the balance between human mechanical limitations and the force that seemed to exploit these limitations, often with fatal results. The path was steep, but Rose was not limited by the human traits of exhaustion or fatigue. It walked quickly up the path with ease, avoiding the rocks and crumbled parts of the path that would would cause its legs to stumble. The keeper wasn’t there, or if he was he was staying firmly put conveniently locked in somewhere down in the Lighthouse. Rose looked around at the quiet lawn around the Lighthouse, pleased that there seemed to be no one else in sight. Rose looked around to be sure, and then scaled the lighthouse quickly and easily – well aware that it couldn’t be caught doing so. Humans were not equipped for such climbing, and it would be all too apparent that Rose wasn’t quite human. It couldn’t take such a risk, so it was careful in its inhuman interactions. Rose reached the top of the Lighthouse, reaching out with a curiosity for some indication of what it may be that kept drawing it there. There was no eddy here, no wisp of Void that it could sense, so it wasn’t quite sure what the significance was. It intended to find out, and started to make its way around to the bay side of the gallery when it felt Lily coming up the path. 

Rose dimmed itself and watched Lily as she walked around the lighthouse and around to the barrier that separated the cliff edge from the straight drop to certain death, and to Rose’s surprise over the barrier. For a split second, Rose felt a panic rising that Lily may throw herself over, ending the experiment irrevocably, but quieted when it saw that Lily seemed to be merely curious. Rose had noted the human fascination with death – nearly to the point of fetishizing it, and Lily’s curiosity was no exception. It watched Lily walking away from the lighthouse and decided to make itself seen. At the moment it emerged from its dimness, Lily turned – evidently sensing even that tiny adjustment of the Void, though not consciously recognizing it as such. Rose knew that with Lily’s freshly planted connection to the Void, that it would need to be careful, and even more so as its experiment grew inside of her. For now, Rose decided to merely let her glance at its full human form. For the plan to work, Lily would need to be just a little more familiar with Rose. No better time than the present. Once it had Lily’s attention, Rose walked around to the other side of the galley, and dimmed. It watched Lily flank the lighthouse and first look up, and then down over the barrier to the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. 

Rose knew now that Lily’s curiosity would lend itself well to the plan and began to piece together exactly how it intended to approach her. For now, though Rose followed behind Lily for a short while, shadowing her until it lost interest and then turned back toward Baleton to find one Hilliard Humpreys. 

As the afternoon darkened into evening, Rose shadowed Daud as he blinked and shifted through the dark places of Baleton – watched as he traversed the rooftops with an ease and familiarity that belied the nearly two decades of not using his powers. It wondered if Daud had realized yet that he no longer need rely on the solution that allowed humans to replenish the Void powers, but figured he had not. It imagined that one small detail figured little, if at all in the excitement of feeling the Void rushing through him once again. As long as the sphere was connected with the runes and charms below Baleton, Daud would have no need for the solution. In time he would notice this – and a few other side effects, but by then it would be too late.

Rose reached out with its mind to find Hilliard Humpreys, sending wisps of tendrils throughout Baleton - tendrils only slightly hindered by the interference of Daud's invisible trails that he left in his wake as he traversed through the highest points of Baleton. It located Humphreys, and made its way to the 'Flask. Rose and H.H. had a lot to talk about, even if he didn't know it yet.


	24. Chapter 24

The ‘Flask was busier than usual, and this worked just fine for Rose. Hiding in plain sight was far easier with an abundance of drunks. The air was heavy with cigarette smoke and the smell of the savory meat and ale pasties that were coming over the counter as quickly as folks could order them. It was not entirely dark in the ‘Flask, but the lights were low giving a largely-forgiving amber hue to those milling about between the tables and the bar. It seemed that humans had a much lower tolerance for physical and emotional shortcomings the more they inebriated themselves, and Rose watched with amused curiosity as friendship was shared under circumstances that wouldn’t otherwise lend itself to friendly conversation. Rough men from vastly different walks of life clapped each other on the back, guffawing through clouds of exhaled smoke and liquor fumes. The ‘Flask women would weave through the crowds in shifts, picking and choosing amongst the available clientele both familiar and strangers alike for a chance at intimate coin. 

This was the first time that Rose had come into the ‘Flask in its full form. It was not concerned about being recognized as Rose. It had, after all carefully crafted its meatbag shell to bear a passing resemblance, if that. Strangers came and went in Baleton as was the case in most port towns – usually attracting no more attention than any other. This time though, Rose was acutely aware that the large woman who tended the door had noticed her. It was not more than the slightest narrowing of her eyes, but Rose sensed the woman’s suspicion and noted a small jump in adrenaline. It felt the woman’s eyes on its back as it made its way to a table around the corner from the bar in the darker area of the room. Rose knew that it had to play this one carefully. It wasn’t sure if it was its appearance that alerted the woman, or its general demeanor. It still had not entirely mastered natural human behavior, and was aware of its perception of ‘slightly odd’. It was passible though, and that was good enough. In time, it would not matter. 

Rose felt H.H. somewhere upstairs in the ‘Flask. His pattern of movement and thought was not what Rose would have expected, given what it knew about the goings-on ‘upstairs’. It waited for a moment, and then decided to order a drink. It gave the bartender Nan specific instructions, and Nan was more than happy to make it. The ‘Flask was known for its odd concoctions and this would be a welcome one to its repertoire. Nan was already figuring a price point in her head, calculating against what was sure to become a popular item. Nan slid the tray over the counter to Rose, with an assurance of this one being on the house. Rose asked to make it two, and made one further request, which Nan wasn’t as happy about but agreed to do. Everyone knew that H.H. was Lottie Worley’s man, and had been for years, but Nan agreed to catch H.H. on his way downstairs and direct him to the strange woman’s table for a drink. Nan hoped it was a matter of business and not something else, but the coin that the strange woman had tipped her was more than enough for her to consider it none of her concern either way. 

Rose carried the small pewter tray with its various items over to its table and waited. H.H. would be down any moment, and Rose was ready. It pulled its mouth into what it considered a friendly, approachable smile as it saw H.H. coming down the stairs. Nan gestured to him, and he rounded the corner from the bottom step and made his way over to the bar. He looked troubled about something as he spoke to Nan, but when Nan pointed over to Rose’s way, his furrowed brow shot up a little in surprise. Impromptu business meetings didn’t usually take this form, and his curiosity was piqued. 

H.H. made his way to the table with a wary smile on his face. His mind was already going through his catalog of ‘Rats trying to figure if maybe she was one come back to say ‘hello’ from some far-off place. There was something familiar about her, and when she rose to shake his hand he took it in his own with a hearty, and what he hoped seemed familiar, handshake. Rose introduced herself and gestured for him to sit down beside her, but he sat down across from her instead. He was aware that Lottie may be peeking over the railing, and didn’t want her to get too suspicious. This woman looked like she had money, or at least access to it or something else that might be worth a lot of money – and H.H. fully intended to find out the best way he could get his hands on it. 

Rose addressed him as ‘Hilliard’, which H.H. found amusing. He only ever knew one person who called him that on a regular basis when he was a young’un, but she was long dead and gone. When Rose offered him a drink, he looked at the tray and smirked his lip and chuckled at the fussy arrangement. He wasn’t sure what it was, but yeah – he’d have a drink. 

He watched Rose with growing interest as she arranged and mixed and poured the ingredients. From a clear squat bottle with a round bottom, she poured a thick looking liquid with a quicksilver pearlescence into the heavy narrow glass first, and then dropped in a small irregular chunk of what looked to be a sugar cube or some other gritty substance roughly cracked in half. The liquid took on a deep gray-blue tinge. H.H. had never seen anything like it. The liquid began to shimmer as the substance dissolved and seem to spin lazily in swirls throughout the darker liquid. To this, she added a thinner clear sharp-smelling substance from a small red rectangular bottle and as the pour entered the blue liquid, it burst into a bright red taking on a thickness that did not seem possible. It reminded him of something, and before he could say it – Rose did. 

“Looks like blood in the water, doesn’t it.” Rose’s voice had an unusual rasp for a woman, and H.H. couldn’t quite place the hint of accent – Morlish, maybe? “It’s called a Whaler. Tell me H.H., what do you know about Whalers?” 

H.H. was a bit puzzled. He didn’t know much of anything about whalers. “Um, whalers – well, they go out on boats, catch whales and then kill them. Very bloody work, Miss.”

Rose’s smile was thin as it leaned forward and lowered its voice. “Whalers, H.H. – the ones from Dunwall. Surely you’ve heard of them?” 

The smile immediately slid from his face. H.H. leaned back in his chair rubbed his hand down over his mouth and stubbly chin as he took in what he had just heard. The conversation had gone from amusing to deadly in the blink of an eye and H.H. needed to buy a few seconds of time to cover his surprise. Any other gang – no matter how mean or notorious, whether they be Howlers, Bottlers or Hatters would not have caused any particular reaction from H.H., but _Whalers_? H.H. took a breath and leaned forward and looked into Rose’s eyes as he said in a low even voice “What the fuck are you on about, woman.”

Rose leaned in a little closer, a thin smile tugging one side of its mouth up into a nearly mocking smirk – a half smile that did not reach its eyes. Rose pushed the drink over to H.H. “First, you drink and then I will drink. Then I’ll tell you what the fuck I’m on about.” 

H.H. had underestimated this one. There was something creeping along his collar up the back of his neck. Something he hadn’t felt in a while – it was a crawl of fear, and a small bead of sweat rolled down his back. Rose smelled the fear seeping out of H.H.’s skin, and knew that it was on the right track. 

H.H. picked up his drink and knocked it back in a single shot. The burn was like Orbon rum, if Orbon rum was administered at close range via a grenade to the face. H.H.’s eyes watered and he hissed air in through his teeth in an effort not to cough. He refused to cough in front of this strange woman. Something told him that showing weakness was probably a bad idea. The burn wore off, and the fumes cleared his nose fairly quickly. What was left behind was a taste that his mind could not quite grasp. It was more of a smell than a taste, an unpleasant misplaced sensation that sat heavily on his tongue and confused his brain. It reminded him of the time that he gave Lottie some flowers, and she kept them for a long time, the stems going putrid as they softly rotted in the tepid vase water. It was a distinctly mossy green taste-smell, like still swamp water or the damp underside of a rotting log. The sensation filled his mouth, and just as he started to gag on the heaviness – it was gone, leaving nothing, not even a taste. Rose tipped hers back with no reaction at all, and on some level this disturbed H.H. in a way he couldn’t articulate. 

H.H. could feel the alcohol hit him, and hit him hard and struggled to maintain some level of control. The woman didn’t seem to be affected at all, and she popped the small heavy glass down on the table with a sharp _snak_. H.H. hadn’t even realized he was still holding his glass, and did the same. They stared at one another for a beat, then two. Rose spoke first. 

“I’ve found Daud, H.H. I know you, and I know your connections. I’m willing to make a deal with you. I’m sure someone out there would pay very dearly for an audience with him, don’t you?”

H.H. was quiet for a moment and then shook his head slowly. “Daud. Right. Woman, first of all – I highly doubt what you say is true, but even if I believed you I’d tell you that you’d be crazy to go after him. What in the gods name makes you think you found Daud?”

Rose looked at him with its strange cold smile and slid something across the table over to H.H. He wasn’t sure at first what he was looking at, but as he picked it up and turned it over in his hands, he realized two things: that Rose wasn’t lying, and that he was about to be neck-deep in some very deep, and very dangerous shit.


	25. Chapter 25

H.H. turned the charred and cracked bonecharm over in his hands, hoping that he was imagining the sensation he felt on his fingertips as he lightly brushed over the hollow sharp-edged ossified pockmarks and bits of wire. It felt powdery and brittle overall, yes – but there was something else – a paradoxical sensation of damp smoothness that made him feel slightly ill. It had a smell like something between a fresh lightning strike and rot. Oh, he knew all the stories about Daud – the devil himself flying around through the air, disappearing at will only to appear and surprise some sap with the point of his knife. Some whispered that Daud could enter people’s dreams just like the Outsider and kill them from the inside-out. That part he wasn’t sure about, but he had done time here and there in Coldridge and talked to people while on the inside who had seen Daud at his dark work first-hand. 

Who _didn’t_ know the Knife of Dunwall in his line of business? Problem was, that Daud hadn’t been seen or heard from in nearly twenty years. There was some aborted attempt at re-organizing the Whalers a few years back that H.H. had heard about through his network, but no one really expected them to launch given the absence of Daud. The black magic assassinations were the stuff of myth, a spooky story he used to tell the young ‘Rats to keep them in line: “You fuck up, and Daud will get you in your sleep.” As the years passed, no-one ever really believed it anymore. The young ones grew up in a world where Daud was just a memory, and a fading one at that. The conspiracy theories died one by one as even the most fervent searchers failed to find Daud. He was simply gone. 

H.H. looked up at Rose and decided, perhaps unwisely, to bluff. “A bonecharm. Been a while, but I’ve seen plenty. What makes you think this has anything to do with Daud?”

Rose looked at him, feigning patience – the smile on its face growing thinner with each passing moment. “Close your eyes, and tell me what you see when you hold it.” Rose sent a faint wisp of a memory that it had managed to glean through H.H.’s consciousness. 

H.H. closed his eyes, holding the charm as firmly as he was willing to and a vision burst into view behind his lids. It was blurry, and faint but he heard a gravelly voice speaking to a woman whose face was indistinct. The vision fractured and he heard the sounds of struggle, fighting and an amused chuckle, deep and humorless. Another fracture, and the same voice was swearing – angry, and it cut to the face of another man. Only it wasn’t a face, it was a mask and the only thing he could make out were some kind of goggles fitted into the mask – a _Whaler_ mask. The charm passed hands and H.H. saw a flash of a man’s mouth bleeding through black rot, and the vision cleared as suddenly as it had appeared. 

H.H. opened his eyes and realized what it was, _who_ it was - that he had heard. 

“What.. what was that?! Was that Daud?” 

Rose smiled a little less thinly. “Now, you’re getting it. There’s much I want to show you, Hilliard. Much more we need to talk about. Are you in?” 

H.H. considered it carefully. He knew that Lottie would never agree to him doing whatever this was going to turn out to be, but given what Lottie had just told him – he was going to need a lot more than ‘Rat money from here on out. In fact, he was going to have to walk away from the ‘Rats altogether. He figured that what he stood to take from this was far more than he would ever stand to make with the ‘Rats. Cholly Shanks was of age, and eager to take over. Perhaps it was time to let him. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, laying the bonecharm on the table. 

“I’m in.” 

Rose was pleased. It had in this short time of conversation come up with a plan that was sure to work for what it needed in order to protect the experiment. It needed Daud gone, and Lily sequestered so that the experiment could continue without threat. What better way than to use but a single man to achieve it? Rose didn’t dare directly intervene. Something told it that going after Daud directly was a very bad idea, for a number of reasons. Lily, on the other hand – that part it would handle itself. What girl wouldn’t want to turn to her mother in a time of need like this? 

“Meet me when you are ready. I’ll be waiting.” Rose stood to leave and H.H. stood as well. 

“Wait, what? When? How will I find you?” 

“You won’t. I’ll find you.” 

H.H. was puzzled. This made no sense. “Well, can I at least keep the bonecharm?” 

Rose looked sideways at him as it pocketed the bonecharm. “Trust me, you don’t want to – unless, of course you won’t be needing your teeth.” 

With that, Rose turned and walked out without another word. H.H. walked behind her to catch up but by the time he got to the door and walked out into the cold night, Rose was nowhere to be found. 


	26. Chapter 26

H.H. walked back inside, troubled but excited – and ordered another drink. A strong one. He tried to ignore Lib Fury giving him the side eye. He was well aware of what folks must have thought seeing him with a young woman in a dark corner bent over drinks and sharing a quiet conversation, but nothing could be further from that. There was something about the woman, while attractive – gave off an aura of nothing even remotely sexual. Not once had it entered his mind, in fact. His mind was firmly on that bonecharm. There was something about it that he could feel only in its absence. He hadn’t realized he was feeling it at the time, but the memory of it flooded his mind with visions of some dark power that on some level he knew he must have. It was hooked deep in his brain, like a hook in a fish’s belly – firmly stuck with no desire or will to remove it. 

He knew he should tell Lottie, but decided that it was likely best if he didn’t. Too much at stake with her now, and the last thing he wanted to do was upset her. He was happy that she was pregnant, and up until the last hour had seen it as a reason to leave Baleton forever and start over. Perhaps he still would, but not until after… what, really? He had opted in to something with Rose without knowing exactly what it was he was opting into. It had to do with Daud, but he was unsure what Rose planned to have H.H. do. Was it a simple matter of outing Daud? Then what? He found it hard to believe that Daud would be anywhere near Baleton. There was exactly nothing here for him. He chuckled bitterly thinking about what the Assasin would think of this quiet little port town. No, he was probably somewhere hiding out in Tyvia or Morley. He wondered if he would need to travel there, or if Rose had planned something else like a trap to bring him here. He couldn’t think of any bait that would bring him here, that was the problem. Perhaps just the threat of an outing? H.H. had a long history of blackmail, and it was clear that Rose knew all about it. But blackmailing _Daud_? With what exactly? He had little doubt that even as an older man, Daud could still kill his way out of any situation and disappear into the darkness like a shadow. Catching him was out of the question, so what would it be? So many questions. H.H. sat and drank for a while longer, wondering when he would see Rose next.

**********

Rose walked through the cold air silently and swiftly back to the castle ruins, carefully considering what it planned to say to Lily when it brought her back down under the strid. Rose had allowed Lily to catch sight of it a few times now – just enough to pique the girl’s curiosity and prepare her for a face-to-face conversation. It had decided to tell her about Daud in the form of a ‘dream’, and then let the conversation go from there. It was interested to see what Lily would think about having shared the last couple of years with a heartless assassin who had spent a good deal of his years elbow deep in the blood and guts of his victims, their lives worth exactly the coin he collected doing what he did best. Would she be scared? Rose had spent enough time in Lily’s mind to know that she wouldn’t be scared, exactly. Perhaps angered over his deception? It wanted to froth up those emotions in Lily’s brain and stand back and watch what happened. It had the perfect story to tell Lily about how she ended up pregnant, one that would surely end with Lily fleeing into hiding – safe away from anyone or anything that would harm the experiment growing inside of her. Rose knew that Lily was not aware of the pregnancy yet, and so decided to wait until the time was right for it. First things first.

Rose reached the castle ruins, and prepared what was left of its habitat for H.H.’s inevitable visit and then made its way back through the town, and then past it to the strid. Once there, it dove in through the eddy and made its way back to the top of the tower. The sphere was spinning in perfect balance in the blue-green glow of the underworld, sending out waves of silent eldritch harmony and Rose stepped inside. It made a gesture within the sphere, and Lily appeared exactly where she had last been behind the pillar some distance away from the sphere. It was aware that Lily could not perceive the sphere, but knew the carved circle and shapes would be more than enough to bring her closer. It watched as Lily cautiously crept forward, and then dropped all caution as the sigils and charms fully caught her attention. It waited until Lily had completed a complete circle around it, and then appeared floating above the rune in the center of the circle as if underwater, wearing the white gown that Lily had last seen it in. Lily had no way of knowing that the white gown was, in fact, the very gown that her mother had envisioned herself getting married in. 

Lily looked up, and Rose opened its mouth and began to speak. Lily’s reaction was sudden – her hands shot to hear ears and she bent over as if in pain. Rose stopped, and realized its mistake. Rose’s words had filtered through the anti-matter in the sphere, causing echoes of interdimensional cacophony to bounce around meaninglessly on the insides of Lily’s brain. Rose began to speak again, this time careful to adjust the filters but it was too late. Lily disappeared in a wink, and Rose was left under the strid alone but for the silent creatures that had dwelled there for thousands of years.


	27. Part 4: Once A Whaler... (Interludes) Interlude 1: Daud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Baleton - 1855, the 1st day of the Month of Darkness**
> 
> _“Even magic is perverted here, and things don't work like they should…”_

Interlude 1: Daud

It had been nearly six weeks since the Possession. Daud had not been troubled by further incidents, and The Outsider seemed to have gone silent for now. The days passed and became weeks and he found himself busy once again with the mundane work of running Stridside Curious Goods. He had nothing but the usual customers, and the transactions were lucrative though uneventful.

Over the past weeks, he spent less and less time out at night transversing the rooftops and dark places around Baleton. He was unable to trust the seemingly endless supply of power that seemed to be available to him even without the solution. He had taken note that each time he went out into the night, he came back in the morning a little less ‘Hearne’ and a little more ‘Daud’ – both in mind and in body. It was not something he could afford. As much as he thrived on the power coursing through his veins, he was protective of the anonymity that he had worked so hard to achieve over the past years. It had gotten harder to hide or explain his gradual return to his relatively youthful state. 

To any who had the courage to ask, he merely explained that rest and exercise were all the medicine a man needed outside of a bottle of good hair tint. He would pull what he hoped would pass for a smile, and then change the subject. It felt good to look into a mirror and see his hair and beard going dark and feel strong and agile again but he decided to err on the side of caution for now. There was no telling what kind of power he was dealing with – particularly since The Outsider didn’t seem to be directly connected to it, and he wasn’t willing to expose himself further to it. He was well aware that he needed to remain watchful and on guard, but allowed the illusion of normalcy to eventually lull him back into his quiet routine. 

If Lily noticed any changes in his general appearance outside of his hair and beard going darker, she didn’t comment on it or act any differently. She kept to herself mostly, and often looked tired and perhaps pale from time to time. It seemed that as he grew stronger, she seemed to grow weaker – or at the very least more tired, and perhaps a bit cranky as well which was unusual for her. He chalked it up to her classes at the Common School. She had been a student there for a month now, and was often frustrated with her literacy coming more slowly than she would have liked. 

He was proud of her, and her determination to learn and to stretch the boundaries of the life that she had initially led. He knew she was smart, but she wanted to be _intelligent_ as well. He was a little surprised the first night she came to him to tell him about the adjustment she would need to her work schedule. She laid out her plans to him, explaining that she had put the money he had given her to good use and would be attending classes and working her way toward the printing trade. He was encouraging and supportive of her and wished her well. He genuinely did – far too often in his _true_ life, the people around him aspired to race at breakneck speed to the very bottom underbelly of human indecency. They wanted to be the best thieves, the most adept murderers, the wiliest of liars and cheats – for once there was someone around him reaching up and out of that. He wished her the best. Not everyone in criminal circles got that chance, and all too few took it when they did. 

The Possession ate at his mind the first few weeks afterward – many afternoons he spent turning it over in his mind, staring blankly into the dust-moted bronze-colored sunlight that filled the front of his store in the quiet of the late afternoons. Through sheer will, he managed to force the worst of the memories of the Possession from the forefront of his mind. For perhaps the second time in his life – not since what happened as a child with the Actor, had he felt so helpless and weak. While the situations were completely different, the outcome was the same: Daud was forcibly manipulated and made to cower in the impotent rage of those who have the will to fight back but are unable. 

As a child, he learned much from his stint as the Actor’s trained dog – the little thief who darted like a shadow through swaths of aristocratic targets, bringing back ill-gotten gains to the man who had infected his mind to the point of Daud never even _considering_ escape for a number of years. The beatings Daud endured were endless and he was subject to relentless mesmerizing. The Actor was obsessed with animal magnetism and animal electricity and after observing the boy in Serkonos for some time from the shadows, was convinced that Daud, even at his very young age, carried inside of him a particularly powerful ability to influence those around him. 

Perhaps the boy did, perhaps not – but the Actor decided to simply kidnap him from his home in Serkonos, and take him to Dunwall under the pretense that he did, and intended to condition the boy accordingly to exploit his natural abilities. Every few days, Daud would be strapped into a chair in some anonymous room, his small dirty bare feet dangling at the ends of his thin legs – not long enough even to reach the floor. The Actor would lean over him, swinging a charm on the end of a thin chain in front of the boy’s face: a small glass ball full of a swirling weakly glowing dark purplish-blue liquid that shimmered with threads of quicksilver. 

Daud would find himself tumbling down quickly, down into the bottom of his mind and the Actor would lean over the boy, cradling his head – lolling in its semi-conscious state, and would whisper into the boy's small ear. The boy’s mind was filled over and over with images and words that he was never able to recall afterward. In time, the boy created from his collective memories and experiences an imaginary friend – his only friend, a small ragged white wolf that grew along with him. It didn’t have a name, but it lived curled in the folds of his heart - feral and protective. Sometimes as he was falling asleep, the boy would imagine the wolf breaking free through into reality and tearing into the Actor, ripping him apart so quickly that his very shreds of meat lived still, quivering as they splattered down into the dirt and muck of the Dunwall streets. 

One night – he couldn’t have been older than twelve at the time, something finally broke inside the boy’s mind. He had been in Draper’s Ward waiting for the right moment to move in on a piss-drunk but very wealthy-looking matron, weaving her way through the dark street carrying her full bags, and singing loudly and quite off-key. It had been during an unusually warm spell of weather, and the sky was clear and full of stars. Daud was looking down into the canal, breathing in the oddly-pleasant stench of the still water, watching the reflection of the waxing moon shimmer in the black mirror of the water’s surface. Then… nothing. 

He found himself awaking some time later as if from a walking dream in a Dunwall back alley far from Draper’s Ward staring down at the mutilated body of the Actor at his feet, rended as if by the claws of some animal. In his shock, he was only vaguely aware of the blood dripping from his fingertips and from his lips. He looked down at his hands in elated horror – he was _free_. Many days and nights and then years afterward trying to find his way back to Serkonos – and more importantly back to himself, were spent in ways that were lost forever in the darkest parts of Daud’s memories. He enforced his will – unusually strong for a child, upon these memories, and scrubbed from them all but what he could make use of later. The Actor faded to a shadow in Daud’s mind, his experiences reduced to memories of sensations used only to motivate or dissuade himself and others much later in his life. The dog that he had been forced to become as a child was dead and gone, but the wolf – the Wolf he kept. At sixteen, he moved back to Dunwall, and the Wolf came with him.

Daud’s mind made these connections between the Possession and the Actor only in the most abstract of comparisons – to this day he had no recollection of much of those years with the Actor. Even the Actor’s death was part of a lost fracture of memory – not once had he thought back to it, or tried to recall it. He simply moved on without a backward glance, as a wolf to man – culling them for coin, savoring the moments his will determined the fate of others. 

From the Possession, he kept only the sensations, the emotions – distilled to their most bitter poisonous concentrates and added them to the mix of cold rage that he intended to unleash upon whatever it was that was daring to fuck with him. He felt no need for further practice of his dark abilities. He was fully ready. He did not think further about what it was that he felt was missing from inside of himself after the Possession. It was a mystery thus far, and Daud could not abide a mystery. He would deal with that when, and _if_ the time came for it. Until then, he thought only of the hunt ahead of him, his thoughts cast in thick dark swaths of crimson and black.


	28. Interlude 2: Lily

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Baleton - 1855, the 1st day of the Month of Darkness**
> 
> _“Even magic is perverted here, and things don't work like they should…”_

Interlude 2: Lily

She could not remember a time where she had felt more tired. It had been some weeks since the debilitating nightmares, and she hadn’t been bothered with them since. Though she was able to sleep soundly, she still woke up each morning with her brain feeling heavy and sodden and her legs cramped her on her walk to and from the Common School on class days. Learning to read was far more difficult and frustrating than she would have imagined. She was in classes with other people her age and older, but she still felt conspicuous and dumb as she stumbled over the lines again and again. She felt lucky at least that she was able to read discreetly aloud to her class tutor and not out loud in front of the whole class. She had had more than one particularly terrifying dream about that happening, usually with her being in varying stages of dress for all to see while she doddered and stumbled over the easiest of words.

As the days turned to weeks, Lily became more comfortable with her classmates and teachers, and while frustrated, came to enjoy what she began to see as challenges and not obstacles. Lily was glad to have the support of Mr. Merrock. He seemed surprised at first when she asked him for adjustments to her work schedule, but was genuinely happy to hear her plans and discuss the direction her life was taking. He didn’t have much to say about it, but she could tell that he was supportive. He had been distant and preoccupied since the night she found him on the floor of his bedroom, seemingly dead. She wondered at first if he was hiding some sort of illness or drug problem, but as time went by he seemed to be getting healthier. He was sleeping more regularly – his late nights out at his shop became fewer. His skin looked less gray, and the hair and beard tint made him look younger than his years. ‘Old Man Merrock’ seemed to be a better fit for his attitude than his overall look these days. Whatever the case, she was relieved that he wasn’t going in the other direction. She wasn’t sure what she’d do without this job and she did care for him, insofar as he permitted it between his gruff sour moods. 

She had seen the strange woman around Baleton a time or two more in the past few weeks, and began to relax her suspicions some. It would seem that Lighthouse Lady was just another traveler from some far-off place who landed in Baleton, of all places, and had decided to make it a regular stop between wherever it was she was coming from or going to. Lily had been far too busy and tired to give it much more thought, and turned her energies toward working for a better future for herself.


	29. Interlude 3: Hilliard ‘H.H.’ Humphries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Baleton - 1855, the 1st day of the Month of Darkness**
> 
> _“Even magic is perverted here, and things don't work like they should…”_

Interlude 3: Hilliard ‘H.H.’ Humphries

H.H. bent over, hand on his knees sweating profusely even as the chilly air howled around the many chinks and gaps in what was left of the castle ruin walls. He wasn’t sure exactly how it was that Rose was able to live in these ruins the way she evidently had been for some time now. He had learned over the past few weeks that some questions were better left unanswered. He was tired, but elated. He had never known such power in his life and had grown accustomed to it in the weeks that followed that first night where he finally learned exactly what his role was to be in Rose’s plan.

It had been a strange night already when Rose finally found him. He had spent much of the evening talking to Cholly Shanks about Lottie, and what he planned to do once they were able to leave Baleton. He was careful to leave out any details about Rose, or even hint about what it was that he had apparently involved himself with. All Cholly knew was that Lottie was knocked up, and that H.H. had decided to hang up his ‘Rat mantle once and for all and leave everything over to him. There was much to do to prepare the transition. They both thought it best to keep things quiet for now, until it was closer to H.H.’s time to leave. There was a rule written in stone that once one was in with the ‘Rats, there was no leaving. There was always the option to join up with one of the larger metropolitan gangs, with the understanding that there would always be a firm tie to Baleton. Other options included taking one’s chances with running away with the understanding that being caught would result in a one-way trip down into the strid. Few, if any got away with running away. Sooner or later, unless they lucked out with a very long one-way journey by sea to somewhere else – they would get caught, and unceremoniously be tossed into the strid in the cover of darkness. 

H.H. was torn, not wanting to look like a fool for breaking the one rule he had set out but he also was done with this life. He wanted better for Lottie and their child, and was fairly determined to find a way to ease out of the ‘Rats with grace. Cholly was completely understanding – Lottie was like a sister to him. They had grown up together for all practical purposes, and Cholly wanted what was best for her as well. It helped that Cholly was excited about the prospect of taking H.H’s place. When the time came, he agreed to help make the transition work best for everyone. 

Things were going fine, that is, until Rose found H.H. 

After H.H. and Cholly had their agreement in place, H.H. headed out to the ‘Flask to talk to Lottie about where she wanted to live after leaving Baleton. The more he thought about leaving, the more convinced he became that it could actually work. His mind buzzed with ideas about different legitimate businesses he could become involved in, and then work toward forming his own – maybe a courier service, or something like that. Something that his son or daughter could take over from him and make into something bigger and better. He still intended to stay firmly in touch with Cholly – you never knew when ‘Rat services might come in handy, after all. 

It had been a good two weeks since he last saw Rose. He hadn’t heard a word from her, nor had he seen her around town. He thought that perhaps this night would be a good night to find out exactly what she had in store for him, and what the next steps pertaining to Daud would be. Various fantasies played out in his head about what he would say or do when he finally met the old Knife face-to-face. He pictured him a broken old man, squatting in a dark cave like a dying but still very dangerous spider. He knew that a bounty on Daud’s head, should he be found, would be pretty hefty. Even a split with Rose would be more than enough for him and Lottie to build a life together far from here relatively free from worry. 

He quickened his step, pulling his coat around himself tightly and making his way through the biting wind. He was nearly there, passing by Old Man Merrock’s shop when Rose stepped out in front of him abruptly, seemingly out of nowhere. He jumped back in shock at first, and then grinned at her. She smiled back with her strange side eyed smile and asked if she could join him at the ‘Flask. It didn’t occur to him then to ask how she knew. He merely gestured forward and they made their way to the ‘Flask together. 

Lib Fury had been in her usual spot guarding the door and her eyes were stony as she stepped back to let them in. She nodded once to H.H., and he nodded back and made his way inside. He was not prepared for what Rose told him that night. He was prepared to hear about Daud, but not about the rest. 

They both ordered strong drinks in thick glasses, and sat at the same table in the dark corner around from the side of the bar. Rose had made it clear that she knew he was ready, and in fact he was. He leaned forward eagerly, and listened to her plan. His face went considerably paler as she went on, and he struggled not to show any significant emotion at what she was telling him. Her plan was simple. She had found Daud, right here in the Baleton Wilds – and he was working with none other than his newest protégé: the long-lost Lily, former ‘Rat and a turncoat who planned to help Daud take over the ‘Rats, and eliminate them one by one and replace them with what would become the newest iteration of the Whalers – a version that would make the original Whalers look quaint and prissy in comparison. 

She told him about an intercepted message that had started her search, and had carried her through to the conclusion that even the smallest of the ‘Rat children would not be exempt from the bloodbath that Daud intended to make of them. Who knew what he needed to spill all of that young fresh blood for? H.H.’s mind filled in the blanks with horrible images of black magic rituals, sacrifices to the Outsider – all he had worked for becoming nothing more than a bribe for more power. H.H. reeled at the idea of Lily taking a place at Daud’s side. Oh, he had no doubt she was up for it. She had managed to fake her death evidently – either that, or she was the first person to ever escape the strid. He had his money on escape – she was just wily enough to make it appear that she had died, and strong and agile enough to make it look convincing. 

H.H.’s intent went from greed to revenge in a split second. He could not imagine how warped her mind must have been for her to want to kill the very children she helped rear and train. They were thieves and ruffians, but they didn’t deserve to die. No sir. Lily though? He would gladly see her head added to the bounty, and personally remove it from her shoulders himself. He tried to hide his trembling, his face white with rage as he thought of all the times he had taken her into his confidence, all he had shared with her – things that no doubt were now common knowledge to that old fucker Daud. He wanted to start tonight, but Rose shushed him and talked him down. Didn’t he remember the stories about the powers Daud had, and surely he knew about his ability to share them with his Whalers? Rose had asked him what, exactly he planned to bring to a fight: a gun? A knife? She had chuckled darkly at H.H.’s impotent anger and offered him the opportunity to fight fire with fire, so to speak. It would take some time, but H.H. would be ready to take them on with some patience and above all, practice. 

H.H. hadn’t known what she meant, and when she asked him to follow her to the castle ruins he wasn’t sure what to think. As they got up to leave, he glanced furtively up at the balcony above only to see Lottie glaring down at him. He looked away quickly, blushing hotly and before he could make it to the door Rose was yelling up at Lottie for all to hear not to wait up, and she promised to take good care of Hilliard. H.H. looked at Rose in outraged disbelief but she merely turned and winked up at an incensed Lottie and then locked arms with H.H. and led him out the door. 

Neither noticed in the moment that Lib wasn’t at her usual spot at the door as they made their way out into the night. 

H.H. would never forget that first night at the castle ruins. As they walked up to it, he was halfway afraid that he had gotten himself involved with someone who was merely insane and reckoned to kill him in those ruins. It didn’t take long to figure out the truth of the matter. 

The ruins were as they always had been: overgrown, dark and cold but when they walked in through a gap in the walls it was as if they were walking into the warmth of a well-kept manor. There was a glow from a fire in the ruined fireplace, and though the floor was in chunks and pieces his feet managed to find solid holds wherever he stood. He thought for a second that he may be going mad as he could see in his mind’s eye in lucid detail exactly what the room would have looked like all those many years ago. It was much lighter than it should have been in those ruins and though he looked up through the ruined walls straight into the dark sky, there seemed to be a threshold there – something that projected a warm light down into the ruins making everything there much easier to see. 

This should not under any circumstances exist – he saw nothing from the outside, no light, no sign of life and yet on the inside… He turned in wonder to look at Rose but she was gone. She had been right there at his shoulder just a moment ago. He turned wildly looking for her and calling her name. Suddenly, he felt the air sharpen – the hairs crawling on the back of his neck and standing up on his goosepimpled skin and with a nearly inaudible pop she appeared inches from his back, close enough for him to feel her breath on his skin. He jumped, fighting back a shriek and turned – only to have her wink out of existence and appear once again right behind him. His breathing went shallow, and he felt his head swimming. Relax, she had said to him – laughing it off. H.H.’s knees gave out and he dropped heavily to his ass right in the middle of some hard rubble. Rose extended her hand and asked for his, and he gave it to her. 

She had told him that she had a gift for him, something that would make him more powerful than he could imagine and that would help them in the fight against Daud and Lily. He accepted, and his mind promptly turned itself inside-out. 

It had started with an intense burning on his right hand. For a moment he thought she had tricked him by either stabbing or burning him as a ‘gift’ but when he snatched his hand away and looked down at it he saw a mark there burned deeply into his skin like a molten tattoo. His mind could not make sense of the shape of it. It was round, no.. square with sharp edges, no it was definitely round. His mind swam and he closed his eyes. When he opened them again and looked at the back of his hand, he saw what looked to be a wholly unremarkable mark there – a very common looking tattoo, similar in quality to various tattoos he had seen given and received during his various stints in Coldridge. His head was filled with whispers and hisses, and his blood felt like it was on fire. There were things he knew now, things that no human being should ever know – it was filling up his brain, and he could feel the pressure building from the inside. He clutched the sides of his head tightly, afraid that his skull would simply explode as surely as if he had bitten down on a grenade. Blood trickled from his nose, and then as suddenly as it came on the pressure released and his mind was left cold from the inside out. He looked over at Rose, astonished and she simply looked back at him, her eyes narrowed in concentration. He couldn’t read her expression, but were he pressed to guess would land somewhere in the territory of ‘distressed’. 

Rose’s face had changed then as if she had been reading his mind, relaxing and then spreading into its typical strange smile. When Rose told H.H. there was much to work on, he believed it. They had started that night. Rose sat H.H. down that night, and explained to him that he was now connected to the Void through Rose, thought Rose did not elaborate on her part in it. She merely helped him parse out what abilities he had, and one by one helped him hone them down into something useful. 

His first attempt at a transversal nearly killed him. She had instructed him to look for a spot in which he wished to appear, and then _think_ himself there while making a particular gesture. He squeezed his fist and then spread his fingers as instructed, sent out a thought and his mind echoed a whisper of some arcane phrase that he could not quite make out and the next thing he knew, he was on his knees in the very spot where he had wanted to be only something wasn’t right. Blood and snot bubbled from his nose, and his eyes felt tight – full of dark floaters that obstructed his vision. He wobbled back and forth on his knees, his hands clutched to his chest, torn between vomiting and fainting. Rose appeared at his side, and grabbed his chin bringing his eyes to hers. She looked concerned, and as she let his chin go his vision cleared. His eyes were watering profusely, and when he wiped his hand across them to clear them, his hand came away slick with blood. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply to keep himself from fainting. He felt no pain, just an unbearable pressure behind his eyes that was slowly dissipating. He stood gingerly, any elation he may have felt in using his ability for the first time lost in the confusion and horror of the moment. Rose told him that it was probably best if they took it a little slower. And so they did. 

Over the course of the next days and weeks, H.H. would make his way out to the castle ruins late at night and Rose would instruct him on his various abilities. In time he could transverse with ease, though there was a level of unpredictability that never failed to worry him each time he used it. Sometimes he would end up short of where he wanted to be, other times he would end up too far away. There seemed to be no way of fully controlling it, and Rose brushed it off as part and parcel of the nature of the Void. H.H. wasn’t quite convinced, knowing about the precision and deadliness he had heard of Daud’s moves, nuanced in such a way that timing was bound to be critical for the full effect. He wanted to ask Rose about that, but wisely chose to keep his thoughts to himself. He decided that using it to go either up or down would probably be a terrible idea and stuck to lateral moves. 

He other abilities were equally astonishing to him. He was able to send out something like an invisible rope or tether and bring objects to him. He knew on some level that he could equally pull people in the same way, though he didn’t yet have the opportunity to test it. He was never able to quite master this, however, as this ability too seemed tainted with the same level of unpredictability. He would miss as often as he would grab, even though his gestures and thoughts were exactly the same each time. Rose didn’t seem overly concerned. In addition to finding himself able to move faster and with greater precision, he was able to recover more quickly from falls and found himself able to handle pain with ease. He felt dangerously alive, more human than human. 

His last ability was puzzling to both himself and to Rose. H.H. used it exactly once, and never again. He had focused and gestured, his head once again filling with a whispered hiss of some half-formed incantation. In front of him a swarm of warped and crippled small creatures appeared. They may have been rats at one time, but whatever they were now was something far from it. They were deformed, their skeletons bent into impossible angles and shapes, the thin living meat stretched around the sharp splinters of bone screaming as if with one voice from the vestigial ragged mouths that each movement ripped deeper into their weeping flesh. Fat blood-red eyes erupted from random spots along their tortured forms and rapidly grew outward, rolling aimlessly on the ends of withered stalks. As one, the eyes swiveled, focused into a sharp feral intelligence, and found H.H. They weren’t just looking at him – they were _seeing_ him. The rat-things wobbled and crawled toward him clearly in unimaginable pain, fragments of their jaws attached to back legs, mouths appearing where no mouth should ever appear, gnawing with bleeding gums at their own insides, teeth sprouting out of their spines, skulls imploding and extruding rivulets of ruined pink brain through the cracks, and the smell was worse than anything he could have imagined – it was the yellow stench of infection and the thick green-black smell of rot-swelled guts exploding with maggots. The creatures blindly crawled to the best of their ability, pulling themselves on twisted appendages through the slippery thick black fluid that each was leaking through fresh angry-looking pustules that erupted, collapsed and erupted again in a sickening rhythm along their flanks, or at least where flanks should be. The creatures’ individual squeaks and screams blended down into a single garbled sound slowed to horrific distortion – words beginning to form from the shapes of the sounds filling the air. The rat-things scrabbled and slipped, dragging their convulsing leaking bodies through their own muck toward H.H. Just before they could reach him they evaporated in wisps and motes of black jelly-like smoke. 

H.H.’s only coherent thought as he collapsed to his knees was _what the fuck?!_ He breathed in deeply to overcome the swimming in his head, the phantom smell of explosive infected rot still burning in his nostrils, so deep he could taste it. Rose’s only comment had been to instruct him to not do that again. He didn’t need her to ask twice. In fact, he didn’t even need her to ask once. Nothing in this world or the next could compel him to call those things back into existence. He tried not to think about what would have happened had they reached him. 

The next few weeks were spent perfecting H.H.’s abilities to the extent that he was able. While his abilities remained unpredictable, his movements became more fluid and precise. He was able to easily duck and weave through Rose’s various attacks. At first she threw punches, then she threw rocks, chunks of brick, splintered boards - and as the days passed she began to show him far more dangerous attacks. 

The one that took the most getting used to was her ability to send abominations erupting up from the ground at will. They looked like kraken tentacles, strangled tightly by thick heavily-thorned vines sprouting wet-looking black roses. The sharp points of the thorns tore into the slick spotted dark-green skin and pale suckers of the tentacles, the acid-tipped black roses bleeding out glowing bright blue corrosive ichor that hissed and spat as it melted the sand and dirt into threads of dark cloudy spun glass wherever it landed. 

As the weeks passed, H.H. found himself eagerly looking forward to his confrontation with Daud and with Lily. Each skill he practiced and each gesture he perfected were leading to him to the moment when he would personally rip that little bitch’s head off of her shoulders and set about the business of beating Daud to death with it. His fantasies were wildly violent, exciting – many times late at night in his bed, his mind would touch on a particular visceral detail and a thrill would run through him – each drop of blood he spilled in his mind ramping his brain up into a near psychological frenzy. 

He thought very little about Lottie during this time, and within a few weeks thought of her not at all.


	30. Interlude 4: Lib Fury

Interlude 4: Lib Fury

When Lib looked back on this time, she would _almost_ feel sorry for H.H. She neither liked nor disliked H.H. – he was just another long-timer to one of the ‘Flask girls. Some men drifted in and out with the tides, others just washed up at the ‘Flask and stayed. Every once in a while a man would come, fall madly in love and take one of the girls with him off to some other place to live some other kind of life. Sometimes the girls would come back, most of the time not.

Rarely, and _very_ rarely, a girl would fall in love with one of the men. Lib could only remember a handful of times that happening. There was Rose Everleigh, of course – a legend borne from a tragedy the day she jumped off of the lighthouse to her death on the rocks below. No one ever knew who this man was that was supposed to take her away to a new and better life, but whatever spell he cast on her was enough for her to leave her little Lily – the child she had loved so fiercely - alone in the hands of cold and indifferent chance.

Another time was with that strange inventor Mr. Joplin. Not long after Rose died, he had come to Baleton for a few weeks to help lead the lighthouse renovations. It didn’t take him long to find the ‘Flask, and even less time to decide to stay there in lieu of the cottage on the High Tider island offered to him for the duration of his visit.

He took to one of the girls, Cora Pearl* – the cast-aside daughter of a famous court musician, nearly immediately. She was an astonishingly beautiful girl, fairly young and shapely with shiny coal-black curly hair piled up in a twist on her head, wanton ringlets escaping here and there. Her skin - a perfect blush of porcelain rose, and her eyes a deep green lined thickly with kohl. She was generally busier than the average ‘Flask girl as she was highly sought after from all over the Isles by princes and paupers alike and was nearly always booked solid. Not once did Cora Pearl seem to return more than was expected of her ilk – certainly anything outside of begrudging affection was out of the question for Cora Pearl. Lib would have never guessed that _Piero Joplin_ of all men would catch her fancy in a way no man had ever done - and send her spiraling into a hopeless mad obsession over the only man she had ever desperately wanted but would never truly have.

Lib didn’t know quite what to make of it, but Joplin and Cora Pearl spent plenty of time alone from the moment they met and within a couple of days of their first meeting, took her bookings off Old Ms. Abernathy’s ledger for the entire time of his visit. They would sit nearly nose-to-nose at a dark corner table in the ‘Flask, sipping strong liquor and talking softly, Cora Pearl hanging on his every word. Strange muffled noises from her room above would catch the attention of patrons who would smirk and leer, and whispers of dark perversions were murmured between crude jokes.

When Joplin wasn’t up at the lighthouse, he was holed up with Cora Pearl up until the day he left. Lib was sure that she would leave with him, but she did not. Joplin merely walked away with a nonchalant ‘goodbye’ and a wave, leaving no promise of a return or even letters. The light went out in Cora Pearl’s eyes that day. She was quiet for a long while after, careless with her hygiene and listless with her clients and demand for her slowly declined. As cold as Ms. Abernathy could be, she would never turn out one of her girls – so Cora Pearl stayed for a while, either drinking alone downstairs or locked in her room.

One day Cora Pearl walked out of the ‘Flask, taking nothing with her but the now tatty and seedy clothes on her back, careless makeup caked and smeared on her face, and her hair in dull frizzed tangles. No one ever saw or heard from her again. Lib didn’t like to speculate about what may have happened, but she reckoned she took a page from Rose Everleigh’s book and took a one-way trip down the side of a cliff.

The last one she knew of? Lottie Worley and that damned Hilliard Humphreys. Lottie wasn’t more than a child when she made her way to the ‘Flask. It was a shock to everyone that Regent, Sr. and Evelyn’s daughter took up such a life. Lib figured that given the choice between slinging vegetables and slinging ass, slinging ass must have been the more interesting option for Lottie. Lottie was not much of a courtesan from the get-go. H.H. laid claim to her early and he paid generously for exclusive rights, and gods help the man who wandered in looking for a little bit of Lottie when H.H. wasn’t around. Ms. Abernathy didn’t care one way or the other – coin was coin, regardless of how many or how few pockets it came out of. Lottie clearly loved H.H. and he treated her well enough. She never really wanted for anything. Marriage wasn’t in the cards for Lottie by choice – as she told Lib on many occasions, ‘the best marriage is measured in comfortable distance’.

Things were just fine for Lottie and H.H. up until a few weeks ago. Lottie was not happy to find herself fallen pregnant, but was beginning to come around right as the strange red-headed woman breezed into the ‘Flask and fucked everything up. At first Lib thought she may know this woman. She bore a passing resemblance to Rose Everleigh, and called herself Rose - so that was probably why. Maybe a cousin or a relative? No, in time it became clear that wasn’t the case at all. The woman was strange, with customs and mannerisms that Lib hadn’t seen before, and Lib had seen plenty of Isles folk come and go. She decided to keep an eye on her.

At first, it seemed innocent enough – a tourist who would come through every few weeks or so looking for this or that, but here recently Lib saw first-hand that this was no tourist and she was looking for something that she had no business looking for.

The night that H.H. met this woman for the first time was the night that Lottie had told H.H. that she was pregnant. Lottie was a real mess, swinging between crying jags and hard cynical laughter. Lottie knew deep down that H.H. didn’t love her to the degree that she loved him, and was afraid that he would simply tell her to go fuck herself and leave her to raise the baby on her own. She was surprised at his reaction – as she told Lib later, H.H. had gone quiet but she could see the wheels turning in his head, and he didn’t seem angry at all. Just thoughtful. It looked like things were going to be ok until that bitch walked in. Lottie had watched him drinking with her from over the balcony. It didn’t look like anything that resembled flirting or even remotely in that direction. Another money-making scam, Lottie reckoned. Lib knew that wasn’t the case, but felt it in Lottie’s best interest to not know the truth. Yet, anyway.

Lib may have been a large woman but she had the gift of being able to move like a ghost, blending into the background unnoticed. She was silent as a stone most of the time, communicating in nods or glares, and her message - while unspoken - was always quite clear. Some people simply didn’t need to speak in order to get a point across. Lib had merely to set her face sternly, one hand on her sleggja – the double-headed hammer at her side - and even the most drunk of the worst violent scum would come to heel immediately. Her reputation preceded her. The reputation they knew of, that is.

The sleggja had shed blood – yes, plenty since her childhood in Caltan. She had been a very large baby, and tore her mother wide open on the way out, killing her in the process. Her father was grief stricken and horrified at the ugly lumpish baby, bloated and rough looking even at birth. He had given her over to the care of one of the alms houses in Caltan and within a few years – though young, big and strong enough to join the legion of other orphaned or abandoned youth working in various camps along the coast.

Because of her size and raw strength, she had been chosen to work at the Roys & Lilliendahl processing plant at the coast in Caltan. Her first days were spent in wonder goggling at all the creatures that came in the plant whole, and left it rendered into a variety of different goods. The foreman noticed that Lib had a way with the frightened creatures that invariably came in shrieking and shitting in a blind panic. A touch and a thoughtful look from Lib seemed to calm them into a relative complacency. They put a dead-blow double-headed sleggja in her large hand, and she began her career as a killing machine. She was praised for her light and careful touch with the sleggja, knowing intuitively exactly the right speed and angle with which to stun a complacent creature into an immediate and clean death. In all her time, she never once splintered a skull. Because she was relatively small, not quite up to a grown man’s shoulders, she was tasked primarily with putting down horkers, and with time she moved her way up to larger creatures. It never bothered her to kill a creature – she would gently caress a horker’s neck, shushing it with her oddly comforting gravelly voice and watch it calm. She would look down into its liquid black eyes and then swiftly bring down the sleggja knocking it dead before it was aware of its passing. The way Lib saw it – creatures served their purpose, and she served hers.

One day, at the age of twelve, she simply walked out of the R&L plant and kept walking until she reached the port at Caltan. Her heavy leathers were stiff with effluvia and gobbets of old blood and shit but they kept her warm. Even though Caltan was relatively moderate in temperature - it was still as cold as a norn-witch’s tit, as was normal for nearly all of Tyvia. Lib caught the first freighter that would let her on board, and ended up in Morley and kept walking. She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew she would know it when she got there. Days, nights and weeks passed as she walked southward through Morley, shedding layers of her leathers along the way – leaving them where they fell. She kept the sleggja at her side and only had to use it a few times. At twelve, Lib was as tall as a grown man and as wide as one as well. Her frankly frightening face was an open invitation to an arse-whipping and very few people messed with her along the way. The one or two who did were subject to Lib’s special soft touch and were dead before they hit the ground. From one of these, she took a pistol and a holster and fitted it to her belt. She stole what food and water she needed, and no more. Her walking turned her lean – only the thinnest layer of protective fat left covering solid slabs of muscle. When she ran out of land to walk on, she boarded another freighter just south of Alba and landed in Gristol just outside of Driscoll. She walked west, following the setting sun toward some destination she still was not sure of. She passed through Old Lamprow with little incident, and when her feet finally ran out of land she stood looking out over the bay in Baleton, an odd astringent stink tickling her nose and knew she had found a home.

She was thirteen or so by the time she got to Baleton, and her feet took her to the ‘Flask. Ms. Abernathy – even back then a sour old woman, took one look at her and hired her on the spot. Her job was to be to watch the girls, and keep them safe. Right on up to the present, she did exactly that with no plans to leave the ‘Flask. Plenty of offers had come her way from the various underbelly citizens who would wash up at the ‘Flask on shore leave between voyages. They wanted her at their sides to cull human creatures at any beck and call but Lib wasn’t interested in that. If killing was called for, she intended to do it as a means of protection and nothing else.

Her view on the motivation to kill changed considerably that first night after listening in on H.H. and ‘Rose’ as the woman called herself. They had no idea that nearly their entire conversation had been picked up by Lib. Nor were they aware of the many nights Lib took off a few hours on a quiet night to shadow them to the castle ruins. She was not surprised to hear about Daud. She knew about the Knife. She knew few people in rough circles who didn’t. She was a little surprised to hear he might be in Baleton, but Daud wasn’t what concerned her though. What concerned her is that H.H. and Rose were going after Lily based on the most outrageous bullshit that Lib had ever heard – and she had heard a lot of bullshit in her years. Lily and _Daud ?!_ Lib couldn’t think of anything more preposterous than that. A ‘Rat is one thing, but a Whaler – _the_ Whaler? Lib knew better. She knew better for an absolute fact.

Though Lily had left the ‘Flask as a child and never looked back – Lib never lost sight of her. She watched her from a safe distance, silent and protective – ready to defend her if needed at a moment’s notice. She watched Lily get beaten down a number of times, but Lib knew that this was a necessary part of making the girl hard enough to protect herself. Lily was living rough with the ‘Rats, and being coddled and over-protected would lead to nothing more than a premature death. As Lily grew up, and ended up working for Old Man Merrock and started to make something better of her life, Lib was able to finally relax some. Knowing that Lily had ‘died’ was comforting and helpful in keeping her safe. Merrock was not a particularly genial man, but she enjoyed his company and had spent many nights laughing with him over an ale and listening carefully for any impropriety toward Lily that may have been hiding in his voice or expressions. Over time, Lib had come to understand that Merrock simply didn’t have it in him to sniff out a rut under any circumstances. She had watched over the years as a woman or two would corner Merrock in a dark corner of a bar and attempt to seduce him, but it always ended the same – Merrock would leave the ‘Flask alone. These days Lib trusted Merrock, and that was saying a great deal. Trust was not something that came easy to Lib, if at all.

She knew she would have to talk to Lily. She was certain that Lily had no idea that Lib remembered her, much less recognized her. She would have to be careful though – shit would certainly hit the windmill hard if word got out she was not only alive but still in Baleton. Lily needed to know what she was getting ready to face. She wasn’t sure how to approach Lily with what she had seen at the castle ruins – any sane person would think that Lib was going addle-brained. Sure, there had been tales of dark magic coming from up from the south over the years but for those who never knew it first-hand they were just that: tales. H.H. may have been a serious threat up until now but something had happened to him with all of the witchery that Lib had seen them up to in the castle ruins. He wasn't quite H.H. anymore and clearly far more dangerous. Lib would never forget those horrific rat-like things that she had seen H.H. conjure up out of thin air. Lib had a strong stomach, but that abomination was more than enough to cause a hitch at the back of her throat.

Lib had made arrangements with Cholly Shanks to keep Lottie company - even suggesting that perhaps at busy times for the 'Rats he should take her back to the 'Rat hole so that he could keep her in his sight, never hinting at the real reason why. Word was already spreading that H.H. had left Lottie for the strange red-headed woman and Lib decided this was as good an excuse as any. Lib needed to know someone was watching out for Lottie while she was focusing on sorting out this situation with H.H. Lib knew that H.H. would never come back. Not in the same way, and certainly not for Lottie - but Lottie needed someone now whether she realized it or not. It wasn’t hard to convince Cholly - he was eager, in fact. The boy had been terrible at hiding how much in love he always had been with Lottie. Lib thought that Lottie probably didn’t have a clue, and right now wouldn’t be looking for it, and not particularly welcoming of it but knew in time that would change. She could think of worse people than Cholly to take care of Lottie, and the child that she would be raising. Lib had no way of knowing, and in fact would never know that Cholly was, in fact, the father of Lottie's child.

Lib began to lay out a plan to approach Lily without alarming her too much. It was time to say hello to little Lily again, and not a moment too soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cora_Pearl


	31. Interlude 5: Cholly Shanks

Interlude 5: Cholly Shanks

Cholly sat by the boy’s bedside, his elbows on his knees and head down. His knee kept jiggling and jiggling nervously as his thoughts raced and bounced off the walls of his skull. He was sure the boy would live, but not by much. Every so often the boy would jerk and groan, waking and sleeping in fits and starts. It had been a few hours, and some of the swelling had gone down – Cholly could at least see Daf’s eyes now. Once the stitches were out, the scars wouldn’t look all bad Cholly told himself. Maybe Daf would even embrace them as many ‘Rats had done theirs over the years. At least it was just milk teeth that were knocked out. Cholly was trying to stay positive in order to get his thoughts under control.

Just a few weeks ago, he was on top of the world – ready to move up and take over the ‘Rats. Then Lottie fell pregnant. Cholly wasn’t at all disappointed to hear that she was pregnant – he did love her after all, far more than he should but he couldn’t help the direction his heart had taken and continued to take when it came to Lottie. He had long given up on a life with her, as it became clear that she belonged to H.H., and so he lived his life to the fullest he could without her. She was always kind to him, and as they grew up together they became close – like siblings in her mind, like something altogether different in his. For a long time, it went on like this, until in a moment of weakness and loneliness a lean on his shoulder had turned into something beyond what he could have imagined possible. His heart tipped full on after that, and he tried to stay out of her way as she tried to come up with something she could salvage out of the situation that wouldn’t end up with both of them being killed. Both were well aware of the consequences should H.H. find out the truth.

He tried to let go, he really did – and was very convincing in expressing his happiness to H.H. over the direction that he intended to take by leaving Baleton with Lottie. He tried to keep his focus primarily on taking over the ‘Rats. He was ready and it seemed that it had been leading in this direction for him all along. The kids liked him, and his approach was more of a guiding force than a ruthless one. Though ruthless, H.H. had never harmed a ‘Rat that hadn’t deserved it, and had never laid a hand on any of the little ones. Until last night.

The day before, Cholly had gotten a message from Lib Fury to meet her at the pier for a chat. It wasn’t unusual for her to send out such messages. As the security detail for the ‘Flask she often made use of ‘Rat services to help run off various ne'er-do-wells before they could make their way back to the ‘Flask. Cholly was more than happy to take Lottie with him to the ‘Rat hole. It was clear after his talk with Lib that H.H. had moved on from Lottie, and was not likely to come back to her. Lib was worried for her, and for good cause. She would need him now, more than she ever had. Cholly was certain Lib had no idea about what had happened with him and Lottie, and chose not to say anything about it. Even though H.H. had evidently taken up with the strange red-headed woman, Cholly knew beyond a doubt that he would still kill them both for what they had done. Not to mention Lottie leading him to believe that he had gotten her pregnant. H.H. was not one to let revenge erode over time to mere anger – nope, once someone fucked over H.H. they were going to pay for it eventually. H.H. clearly had no problem dropping a bastard on someone else, so Cholly decided to just go along with it for both of their safeties.

Cholly had taken Lottie back to the ‘Rat hole and settled her in. The kids liked Lottie, and were happy to see that she was going to stay for a little while. H.H. had been spending less and less time there, and seemed preoccupied and fidgety – clearly itching to be somewhere else. Cholly could hear him thrashing in his sleep at night, and during the days he looked drawn and pale – dark circles lining eyes that shined just a little too brightly. He would spend days away, and then one day he just didn’t come back. It had been a few weeks since then, and no one had seen or heard from him until last night.

Cholly had been outside at the workbench cleaning and repairing some of the old equipment that some of the older ‘Rat kids had ‘salvaged’ from a ship that was sitting largely unattended at the docks. Their take was pretty decent, but most of it looked like it had been salvaged from somewhere else. Cholly was pretty sure he could get most of it back to working order. He was busy taking some steel wool to rust on an old saber blade when he glanced up and saw H.H. coming up the path. H.H. looked grim, and Cholly was genuinely scared that H.H. had found out about him and Lottie. He dusted his hands off on his pants, and tried to keep his composure as best he could. H.H. looked like he hadn’t bathed in a while, and the smell coming off of him was a clear sign of it. His clothes were dirty and torn in places, and when he walked up to Cholly, he greeted him with a smile that was just a touch too wide – a smile that didn’t reach past his mouth. Something had happened to him, Cholly was sure of that. He wondered if H.H. had gone addled or something.

H.H. acted as if he had never left, and asked Cholly to come along with him to the basement. Cholly was taken aback. He was ready to take over the ‘Rats and knew eventually he would be taken down there but under these circumstances he was hesitant. The basement was a no-go zone for everyone but H.H. and any given out-of-town gang member that paid visit to him. Cholly wasn’t sure what went on down there, but he had seen more than a few Hatters, Bottlers and Howlers going down there for long private conversations with H.H. Cholly didn’t want to alert H.H. to anything, so simply went along as if he were expecting to already.

H.H. pulled a heavy dull key from his keyring and opened the basement door. From the start Cholly could see that it was more of a cellar than a basement, but it was fairly well-lit and the damp was at a minimum. There was a smell down there like potatoes gone to the bad – a rot that while unpleasant was not overwhelming. As H.H. turned on more lights along the way Cholly could see why no one was allowed to go down there. In neat rows along the sides of the cellar were safes of different sizes. They walked on to a desk that was in the back of the cellar, and H.H. gestured for Cholly to sit down behind the desk, and he did. H.H. told him that it was time to hand the place over, and Cholly may as well get used to sitting on that side of the desk. H.H. handed the key to Cholly, and then took another key from his ring and unlocked a drawer on the right side of the desk. From the drawer he took a small leather-bound book and handed it to Cholly. When Cholly opened it, he saw written there in H.H.’s cramped but neat handwriting the codes to each of the safes. For a moment he forgot all about being afraid. There was no telling what was in these safes, or how much. H.H. seemed awfully nonchalant about it and Cholly was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more ceremony to it. He stood without a word, and went to shake H.H.’s hand but froze.

Behind H.H. he could see little Daffyd sneaking in the shadows, spying on them. Daffyd was one of the youngest ‘Rats and by far the sneakiest – he was fresh out of the Wilds, where a high sneak ability meant the difference between life and death. The boy was probably no older than six, but could sneak and hide in plain sight in broad daylight with skill far beyond his years. Daf was well-aware that this was a no-go zone and Cholly was horrified to think about what would happen if was caught. Cholly didn’t have much time to think about it.

H.H. tilted his head slightly and sniffed deeply. His eyes narrowed and a particularly nasty smile crept up on his face. This time the smile reached clear up to his eyes, and Cholly didn’t like the look in them one bit. H.H. said quietly that he smelled a rat where a ‘Rat had no business being, and then turned with a liquid quickness, walking directly to the spot where little Daf was hiding. Daf was too shocked to move – there was no possible way that H.H. could have spotted him that quickly. Daf stood, white faced and trembling. H.H. didn’t look like himself, didn’t act like himself. The boy was clearly afraid of him.

Before Cholly could fully process what was happening, H.H. said not a word to the boy, but lifted his foot and smashed the boy so hard in the face that his skin burst open in places and his small body took flight and stopped short when he slammed into a support beam. He crumpled to a heap on the floor, his face already swelling beyond recognition – his small mouth a bloody torn hole in his face. H.H. looked down dispassionately, and to Cholly’s horror hocked deeply and then _spat_ on the boy's ruined face and turned away from him. “Gotta keep ‘em under control, Cholly – show ‘em who’s boss” and then turned away from the boy. “Good luck, Cholly – see you around” and then he walked away as if he had done no more than swatted a fly. Cholly’s mind raced with what to do next – he couldn’t leave Daf down here like this but he also couldn’t leave Lottie up there in the bunk. What if H.H. was heading up there right now? Cholly crouched down long enough to hear that Daf was still breathing – ragged bubbled breaths, but he was breathing at least. Cholly jumped up and ran after H.H. H.H. reached the door and stood for a moment holding it, as if waiting for Cholly and then simply let the door bang shut. When Cholly burst through the door, he went immediately to the bunks and saw that no one there had a clue what had just happened downstairs. Lottie looked at him quizzically and then Cholly turned and ran outside without a word, looking all around wildly. H.H. seemed to have literally disappeared.

Cholly pulled aside one of the bigger ‘Rat kids that were beginning to gather around and sent him to fetch Anne Bonny. He gave Lottie a quick run-down of the events, with the intention to explain more later. Lottie had clearly been shocked to hear about H.H. hurting one of the little ones and stepped up quickly to help. 

From the little Cholly knew about Anne Bonny, he did know that she was a skilled medic – the closest thing the Hatters had to a doctor in Dunwall in her years there. Anne was who the ‘Rats turned to for treatment of serious injuries – she was discreet, and had a better bedside manner than the Baleton surgeon for these types of patients. She was as adept with the proper use of various drugs as she was selling them out of the back of her market for largely improper use.

It didn’t take long for Anne to make it to the ‘Rat bunk. She had her big black bag with her, full of necessary supplies. Lottie and several of the ‘Rats together got Daf upstairs to the offices, where they laid him on H.H.’s old bed. The boy had become conscious and was thrashing wildly and screaming through his ruined mouth, flinging blood and bits of teeth around. Anne instructed a handful of ‘Rats to hold him still so that she could get him ready for what she was about to do. Anne went to work. She cleaned the boy’s face first, wiping as much of the grit as she could from his broken skin and lips. She gently laid something that looked like a small colander over the boy’s mouth, and on that draped fat pads of gauze. She pulled a bottle of ether from her bag, and then began to administer it drop by drop onto the gauze until the boy reached a stable twilight sleep. His little body relaxed and she handed the bottle over to Lottie, every so often calling for another drop as Daf drifted in and out of his twilight sleep while she worked on putting his face back together.

Anne stitched the boy’s face up with a quick precision, and before long the busted open holes in his face had become neatly stitched rows that crisscrossed from one cheekbone to the other, and from his forehead to his chin. Anne had never seen anything like it – it must have been one hell of a kick. She kept her focus on fixing what she could, trying not to think that the boy would likely die - there was nearly no chance that his brain hadn't been banged up as well. She had Lottie do a double-drip and then lifted the mask, working quickly on extracting the broken pieces of teeth. She was glad to see that they were milk-teeth and that his permanent teeth would probably grow in just fine. While his skin and what was left of his teeth were a mess, his jaw and facial bones oddly didn't seem to be cracked or broken. Finally, Anne was finished. She wiped down the boy’s face once again with a mild carbolic solution and gave Lottie several ampoules of morphia with strict instructions on the safest and most effective use of it to keep Daf alive, but feeling a minimum of pain. She also gave her an arnica solution for the swelling. The morphia helped – the arnica solution, not so much. Over the course of the night, the boy’s eyes swelled to what seemed to Cholly to be impossible proportions even with the arnica solution.

Cholly had the older ‘Rats stand watch outside throughout the night, well-armed should H.H. make his way back. Cholly sent everyone else away from Daf’s bedside down to the bunk room – even Lottie. He needed to be alone right now. He sat by the boy’s beside through the night, jittering his knees and clenching his fists - his mind forming a plan for his next steps. He wasn’t sure how yet, but he intended to make H.H. pay.

In just a few short weeks, he would meet a man with a remarkable past - a man named Thomas, whose past expertise would prove to be very helpful indeed.


	32. What will we do with a drunken Whaler?

Part 4: Once A Whaler…

Daud locked up his shop, and headed out for the ‘Flask. The day had been long and fairly uneventful, and he was looking forward to rum and cigars with Gryffid Willems. He had not taken more than a few steps before he noticed that the night air had gone acrid and thin and carried a hint of copper in the wind. It was not as vivid as it had been several weeks ago, but it was enough for Daud to switch to a higher-alert state as he walked along the nearly empty street. He had known that it wouldn’t be over – no, that would be too simple, but he still found himself surprised to feel the air taking on this change again. There was a time long ago where he would have been far more alarmed by the absence of it.

The air in Dunwall had carried varying degrees of perpetual Void stink at all times. He was fairly certain it still did, though probably fading some now that things had returned to a state of normal. Normal for Dunwall, anyway. Whatever this was in the air had nothing to do with Dunwall though. It was different. Definitely not Delilah trying to settle an old score. He could _feel_ on some level that Delilah was gone. Not far away, not dead - just … gone. He pulled his thick old coat around himself a little tighter against the bitter salt-wind blowing off the bay, and walked quickly on.

The ‘Flask was quiet tonight. Lib was in her usual spot, greeting him with a silent nod. Nan was wiping the perfectly clean gleaming bar, out of work to do but evidently too restless to simply stand. Gryffid hulloa’d him from the corner table around from the bar and Daud made his way over, wiping the salt-wind specks from his glasses. He took off his jacket, shook Gryffid’s hand and then they set about the business of getting good and drunk.

They were a few drinks in, the air above their table thick with smoke when the red-headed woman walked into the bar. Daud’s back was to the door, but he felt the air change as if the temperature had dropped several degrees. What little chatter had been burbling around them had gone quiet. Gryffid was looking over Daud’s shoulder with a curious look on his face, so Daud turned to see what had caught not only his attention, but evidently everyone else’s as well. Shit!

For a second he thought she wouldn’t see him, and turned quickly away only to hear “Mr. Merrock, what a de **light**!” in a loud brassy voice. He clenched his jaw. Well, Gryffid wanted to see what she was about – no better time than the present. He turned back around, trying to arrange his face into something less annoyed-looking and half-heartedly waved her over. Gryffid was silent, but his eyebrows raised ever higher as she made her way to the table.

Rose introduced herself to Gryffid – “Mr. Willems, fine job you are doing with Baleton. Why, in all the places I’ve been I have yet to see such a charming and well-run town…” Daud let her obvious pandering fade to a drone as he focused on her, trying to glean whatever he could without having to resort to his abilities. There was something there, yes – but faint. Gryffid looked pleased when she started talking, and by the time she finished he looked slightly embarrassed. Her voice was loud and carried throughout the bar. Gryffid was a quiet and unassuming man, and this sort of overblown praise was entirely at odds with his demeanor. He sipped at his drink, and Rose invited herself to sit at the table with them. The conversation on Rose’s part was overly bright and chatty. Daud was silent, and Gryffid was leaning in toward her appearing to listen but Daud could tell he was also watching her closely.

“Mr. Merrock, Hearne if I may – I can’t tell you how delighted I am with my copy of The Knife of Dunwall. I can’t _wait_ to stop by and see what other _interesting_ things you surely must have there.” She continued chattering on about her studies into the Whalers, and the various pieces she had in her collection. Gryffid found this interesting, and listened on. He was well aware of who the Knife was. Time may have erased much of the younger folk’s memories, but the sadness over Jessamine’s death lingered on in the hearts of older folk like himself. It hadn’t taken long for the conspiracy to blow itself to bits, and over time it had become common knowledge that Daud had done the deed and not Corvo Attano. He always wondered what had become of Daud – evidently long gone, and encouraged her to continue. “So tell me Hearne, surely _you_ in all your years of hoarding ‘curious goods’ must know something about the Knife, come on – tell me at least one secret, I promise not to tell a soul.” She said this with a wink to Gryffid, who looked at Daud expectantly.

Daud didn’t reply, and Rose immediately called him out on it. “Oh, come now Hearne you are so quiet! It must be that lightweight stuff you and Gryffid are drinking. You both need to loosen up some. I know just the thing – something to put some _real_ hair on your chest. My treat, of course.”

Before either could protest, Rose was already up and striding around the corner to the bar. Nan was unusually stonefaced, her eyes hard, but set about getting what looked to be a fairly complicated setup going.

Gryffid looked to see if Rose was preoccupied and then leaned in to keep their conversation quiet. “Now Hearne, I was sure that was going to be Rose’s daughter when she first walked up but I can tell you with certainty that she might look a bit like Rose, but that ain’t no relation to Rose Everleigh. Something is off about her, Hearne.”

Daud agreed with Gryffid and started to answer, but was interrupted by Rose carefully laying a silver tray down on the table. There were three small thick glasses and a couple of bottles that looked very much like the types of bottles he used in his lab. On a small dish were some chunks of what looked like roughly-smashed sugar cubes, but the consistency was a little off. This was more crystalline, with a finer grit.

Rose chattered on about this and that while making the drinks. Gryffid was clearly amused by the idea that something as fussy as this setup would be more potent than the Orbon rum they had been drinking. He was already a little drunk, and Daud was as well but neither was worried about topping their tipple off with such a prissy-looking drink. Daud imagined this sort of thing was commonplace at events like the Boyle house parties, full of dandies, perverts and poseurs getting roaring drunk on trendy mixes of what was probably not more potent than the average cough syrup. His analytical side though, was ever curious about the mixing of various reagents and he watched, masking his curiosity as best as he could.

The first liquid that went in was thick and cloudy – no, Daud realized, not cloudy but shimmery somehow. It almost looked like a concoction of quicksilver. He had seen nothing like it before and the smell he didn’t recognize at all. Intrigue began to outweigh suspicion, and he asked her if this was something that was common where she was from. Rose just looked at him with a cryptic half-smile and continued. She dropped in one of the gritty chunks, and the liquid immediately went a deep gray blue. The glints of silvery substance were enhanced greatly and began to swirl in the liquid with a life of its own. Daud was struck by something, a half memory maybe and he felt his mind beginning to tip slightly as he watched the motion of the liquid. “ _Mesmerizing_ , is it not, Hearne?” asked Rose with an expression that belied the innocence she was putting on by asking.

Daud looked deeper into the liquid hearing her, but not quite listening - what was it this reminded him of? It was just out of reach in his memories. Gryffid was watching the liquid in wonder saying not a word. Rose then picked up the other bottle, a sharp odor permeating the air when she uncorked it. It was thin, and the smell Daud thought he may recognize, but he was having trouble connecting his thoughts as he watched. When the thin liquid hit, it coagulated into a thick red floating on the surface. Gryffid’s eyes got larger, and Daud knew somehow what she was going to say. “Its called a Whaler, fellas. See that? Blue on the bottom, and red on top. She didn’t need to explain further. Both men saw it for what it was supposed to represent – blood in the water. Rose pushed this one in front of Daud, and began to make the other two – pushing one over in front of Gryffid who looked like he wasn’t sure quite what to do with it and the last one she pulled in front of herself. She smiled and said “As it is with Whalers – the red at the top is where all the power is, is it not? Ok, gentlemen – take up your glasses and let’s make a toast: to the Assassin Daud and his Whalers, wherever they may be. One shot, men. All at once.”

Rose knocked hers back, and banged the empty glass on the table. Gryffid did the same, only with watering eyes and long ‘hoooooooo boy’ when he plonked his glass down. His face ran the gamut of expressions – first disgust and then nearly as quickly a look of surprise as the unusual flavor evaporated from his palate as quickly as it had inundated it. Daud picked his up in a daze, not really wanting to drink it but somehow compelled to. His mind felt mushy and soft. He knocked it back and his mind filled with a cacophony of flavor: it reminded him of his old hideout in the Flooded District – still water thick with algae and soft rot, and then in a flash the flavor was gone. He felt the room begin to spin – he had never been this drunk before in his life that he could recall. He pushed back from the table and stood, and just as quickly Rose stood with him leaning in close to his face and cradling the back of his head in her small cold hand. Gryffid was amused – he had never seen Hearne in such a dance with a woman and was curious how he would react. Rose leaned closer and Daud seemed powerless to stop her – his arms and hands going numb and useless. For a sickened second he was sure she was going to kiss him but she didn’t. She merely pulled him very close and began whispering in his ear.

Gryffid wasn’t sure what to expect from Hearne’s reaction but it certainly wasn’t what he saw happening in front of him. Hearne’s face went bloodless in an instant, his usually dusky skin going the pale yellow of parchment. Hearne pushed Rose back sharply and stumbled, falling backward and knocking over his chair. Gryffid was good and drunk by this time, and stumbled a bit himself trying to get around the table to help Hearne. Rose didn’t seem to be affected at all, nor was she evidently bothered by being pushed so hard. She just smirked, and said that perhaps it was time to call it a night. She turned and walked off, heading past the bar and out the door. Gryffid struggled to keep Hearne in check – his body seemed to be full of tense angry springs and he was jerking about to get away to go after Rose. Gryffid had no idea what that was about, but something told him that it was not a good idea to let Hearne go after her. The other patrons in the bar gawped in amazement at the spectacle – _Old Man Merrock? What the hell?_

Daud broke away from Gryffid as gently as he could and said that he need to leave, NOW and headed for the door weaving unsteadily on his feet. Gryffid looked around for Lib Fury to help him get Hearne under control but she was nowhere to be found. Nan only shrugged when he asked Lib’s whereabouts. It was clearly too late to stop him now, though. Hearne was gone, and the door of the ‘Flask banged shut loudly behind him. Gryffid considered chasing after him, but thought better of it particularly since Lib was nowhere to be found. Something told him it was best he was getting back home. 


	33. Chapter 33

_he was running after her she was right up ahead and he could smell her blood in her veins he reached for his wristbow but it wasn’t there his blade was gone too but fuck it when he caught up to her he was going to do what he should have done all along goddamned Delilah she was right ahead no.. no that wasn’t right not Delilah it was it was … he needed his Second with him where the fuck was Lurk she should be here she should be up ahead cutting off the path up ahead he reached out with his mind calling Lurk Lurk Lurk goddamnit answer me he called out again with every ounce of Void left in him LURK **LURK!!!** but wait Lurk was dead he killed her he no.. no, Lurk wasn’t dead he sent her away he let her go Thomas answer me fucking hell answer me THOMAS **THOMAS!!!** goddamn you wait no what the fuck come back and fight me Corvo you fucking coward I see you running up there no it was not Corvo it was her her her that bitch she stole from him and she was going to pay dearly oh yes he could feel her skin tearing under his teeth even now come back you cunt when i catch you i’ll show you all **kinds** of secrets you fucking bitch come back what what the hell is Martin doing here fuck you Martin you fucking cheat you knew Corvo was alive when you sent him to me you bastard you you’re dead no.. no.. her, the bitch her her **her** it was her all along Lily oh gods no Lily no no no_

In his mind Daud was running, but his body refused to cooperate. He listed and stumbled, falling to his knees only to scramble up again confused his mind racing with incoherent thoughts as his brain seemed to spin and wobble sickly inside his skull. He gestured and transversed landing and stumbling and falling on his face his mouth filling with grit. The castle ruins, he had to get to the castle ruins – he pulled himself to his feet and stumbled heavily to one side unable to get his balance. He looked up and the road was breaking up in front of him the air going a purple black and he stumbled and wobbled straight into the Void, the Outsider clearly expecting him. 

The Outsider looked at Daud with expressionless eyes and Daud’s mind cleared in an instant as the cold air of the Void displaced his incoherent thoughts. Daud stood for a moment getting his bearings. He couldn’t remember what he was running for, or why he was running at all. The Outsider looked different even from the last time he had seen him weeks ago. His skin seemed to be thinner and flaking somehow, his eyes gone dull. If the Outsider picked up on this observation from Daud’s thoughts, he didn’t mention it. 

“So, Daud you meet your enemy at last. Tell me, what will you do when you catch her? Will you kill her take back what is yours? I’m afraid that can’t happen, Daud. It isn’t quite that simple. Oh, she has it but it will do you no good to go after it. She took it from you, and gave it to someone else.”

Daud was trying to make sense of what he was hearing – so there _was_ something missing, twice now the Outsider had confirmed it. He closed his eyes, searching inside of himself to pinpoint what it was but his mind’s eye was blinded by sworls of blue shot through with iridescent silver. She had it, but gave it away? How? The Outsider answered as if Daud had spoken out loud.

“You're asking the wrong questions Daud, looking in the wrong directions. Rose already gave you your answer. She whispered it plainly in your ear. It is up to you whether you choose to remember it.” 

Before Daud could answer, he found himself back on the rough path leading up to the castle ruins flat on his back his mind immediately spinning back into incoherence. He tried to roll over but his body was unwilling. He closed his eyes and stopped fighting it and allowed himself to fall deep into the blue sworls in his mind and then there was nothing, nothing at all.


	34. Chapter 34

Lib Fury had been antsy looking for a good opportunity to talk to Lily, particularly after what had happened to little Daffyd. She had been watchful of Lily, sending people she knew to shadow her when Lib wasn’t able to. She intended to visit Lily at her home, but wasn’t quite ready to bring Merrock in on this. She wanted to talk with Lily first, privately. Lib was pretty sure she was going to have her chance tonight when she saw Merrock coming into the ‘Flask to meet Gryffid. Lib knew on nights like these the drinks flowed freely for them both, and their conversations were generally animated and above-all lengthy. 

She was nearly ready to go let Ms. Abernathy know that she was going to knock off for a few hours to take care of some personal business when H.H.’s new red-head Rose came sauntering in. She was amazed at the brazen nerve of this woman walking in so casually after everything that had happened. She was very glad that Lottie wasn’t here to see it. She saw Nan’s eyes narrow and for a moment Lib was worried that she was going to be breaking up a fight. Nan behaved herself outside of obvious glares, and Rose beelined right for Merrock and Gryffid. Lib was curious about why, but not curious enough to stick around. She went upstairs and spoke briefly with Ms. Abernathy who had no issue with her taking a few hours off. It was a quiet night, and as far as she knew there was nothing harmful about Rose jawing with those two gents. They would keep her tied up for a while, she reckoned which worked well for Lib. At least she would know where Rose was without having to worry. H.H. on the other hand, well – if he chose to show his ass this night to Lib she would be glad to show him the killing end of her sleggja up close and personal. 

Lib made her way down the street, and crossed over the town center and took a deep breath. She was worried about Lily’s reaction, but more worried for Lily’s safety. She went around to the back entrance service door and knocked once and again loudly unsure if Lily would hear from upstairs, a million scenarios playing through her mind at once.


	35. Chapter 35

Lily was curled up in her mother’s lap rocking back and forth, lulled by the humming of a song that never failed to sooth her. She buried her face in her mother’s dress and nestled closer in her familiar smell: her perfume – a musky mix of sandalwood and rose, and a faint hint of the cigarettes she sometimes smoked. Lily was warm and comfortable, safe and happy. Her mother was telling her a story, a story about a young black-eyed man who was coming to take them to a wonderful place where they would live the rest of their lives in happiness and in love. Lily half-listened, the rocking lulling her into rhythm in which she drifted in between awake and asleep. 

Her mother’s words slowed and warped as Lily fell into dream there in her mother’s lap. The story became a scary story about a wolf that was going to come eat Lily up. Lily clutched to her mother, the warmth and comfort congealing into clammy dampness. Her mother didn’t smell so good now, and she struggled in her arms trying to get down off of her lap. Her mother held her tightly, so tightly that she couldn’t move and continued her story:

_Once there was a man who carried within him a wolf. Not a real wolf, but the spirit of a wolf that fed the man an insatiable hunger for blood. The more the wolf fed the man, the hungrier he got. One day the man decided that he was going to feed that hunger, and he found a way to kill people for money. He became a very famous assassin, the best in the whole world. He killed hundreds of people but still he was hungry. The years passed, and the more he fed his hunger the worse it got until he killed the Empress of the land. Suddenly, a curse fell upon him and his hunger turned to sickness and he did whatever he could to try to make the sickness go away. The Empress left behind a daughter, a princess that was in grave danger from an evil witch that wanted to rip out the princess’s heart and walk in her skin. The man thought that saving the princess might lift the curse and help his sickness go away, but even after he banished the witch and saved the princess he was still cursed and sick inside. He crawled away to hide from the world, hoping that if he never killed again, the curse would one day pass and the sickness would fade to a memory. He hid for a long time disguised as a harmless old man without killing a soul, and with time was able to fool himself into thinking that the wolf had died inside him taking the curse with it and that the sickness had left him. Oh, child he was wrong. One day he found a young lost girl wandering along in a forest. He tricked her into coming with him with promises of safety and comfort. He gave her a home, and for a time the girl the girl was happy and felt safe with the old man. The girl grew into a beautiful woman, and once again without warning the wolf awoke inside the man. The man was hungry again, not just for blood but for something else. He went into the young woman’s room one night and into her sleeping mouth slipped a special herb – one that caused the young woman to leave her body so that he could do with it what he wanted. He tore into the young woman, and began feeding on her – not just her blood, child. Do you remember, Lily? **Remember** child, I need you to remember. I can’t help you unless you remember…_

Lily was confused, and struggled to free herself from her mother’s arms. She tried not to think about the story but it was cascading through her brain, leaving no part of it untouched. Deep inside of herself she felt a stabbing pain, rhythmic and primal. She felt a weight on her holding her down even as she was held tightly in her mother’s lap. She was remembering… 

NO! Lily broke free from her mother and went to jump down from her lap but found that she was her full adult size. She stepped away puzzled and looked back at her mother rocking in the chair back and forth, back and forth. She couldn’t see her mother’s face clearly – it kept sliding just out of her ability to see it clearly. Lily felt another stab of pain and then something else, something building into an electric crescendo that confused and frightened her. She bent over, holding her middle but her mother kept talking as if nothing had changed. 

_As the man fed on the young woman more deeply, his disguise fell away and he again became the famous assassin that he had once been, had always been. His name is **Daud** , child. Remember the Wolf, **remember…**_

Lily closed her eyes, willing her mind not to see the Wolf-Man again but his face loomed in her memory his muzzle bloody and his long tongue lolling obscenely as he lapped up the blood on the woman’s face. The woman under the strid. The woman. The woman was… no. NO. A hidden piece of her mind unlocked suddenly and she was under the man, pinned down and splayed open as he drove deeper into her, his eyes wild – panting and growling. It was _Mr. Merrock!_ No. It was Daud - the Assassin Daud, Whaler from Dunwall, and had been the entire time. 

Lily opened her eyes and looked in horror at her mother, but it was no longer her mother. It was the red-headed woman from under the strid, wearing the flowing white gown, her feet bare and dirty. Her face a blur except for two black holes where eyes should have been, and the barest suggestion of a mouth. 

The woman looked at Lily, curving its rough-hewn mouth into a smile. “When was your last moon time, child?” 

From far away, Lily heard a loud banging. She looked around to see where it was coming from and awoke suddenly in a cold sweat, every detail of her dream remaining with a crystal clear clarity. There was someone knocking at the door.


	36. At Long Last, Lurk

Billie Lurk woke from a dead sleep, her heart pounding in her chest. She sat up and looked around wildly, for a second disoriented and unsure where she was. She fully expected to see the ruined walls that surrounded her bunk at the hideout in the Flooded District, but no. She was in Old Lamprow in the boarding house where she had been staying for last several weeks. She allowed her breathing to slow as she ran the details of the dream in her head, searching for something that might explain what had just happened. 

She had been dreaming about Deidre. They were living together at Daud’s hideout in the Flooded District. Deidre was still a child though, as young and beautiful as ever. Even in her dream state, Billie found herself confused about how this could be – Deidre had been dead for a number of years yet here she sat next to her on her bunk, watching as Billie cleaned and polished her gear, or as well as she could with only one arm. Deidre didn’t seem to notice that Billie was missing an eye and an arm, nor did she find it odd that they were currently bunking in an assassins’ hideout. Sweet Deidre merely looked up at her with her pale green eyes, chattering on as usual, pushing strands of curls from her face that sprang out from under her cap. Deidre was talking about a place that they could move together and be happy forever. Billie was hesitant to talk about it at first, unwilling to leave her life as a Whaler behind – but wait, that was so long ago. She hadn’t been a Whaler for many years. She looked at Deidre and to her shock and horror, her beautiful eyes began to fill from the inside with a black liquid until they slightly bulged. Deidre didn’t seem to notice, and said that the place she had picked out was Baleton. She smiled at Billie, clearly expecting her to be happy or to at least acknowledge it. Baleton? The hemlock town? She couldn’t think of a single reason why they should go to Baleton. Please Billie, she had begged – pouting her bottom lip out in a way that usually got her way with Billie, but looked terribly out of place, almost obscene paired with her shiny black eyes. We have to go, Billie. Please. The air took on a purplish hue and the walls around them began to lean in at bizarre angles. Billie opened her mouth to speak but her brain was filled with a panicked outraged screaming 

_**...Lurk Lurk Lurk goddamnit answer me LURK LURK!!!...** _

There was no mistaking that voice. Her thoughts went incoherent in her dream Oh shit! Where was he, was there a mission she missed? No, that wasn’t possible – she left, she betrayed him and he forgave her and she left. She reached for Deidre in a panic, but she was gone. The floor crumbled beneath her and as she began to fall to her certain death, she woke up. 

Daud. All these years she had been looking for him, any scrap, any hint of where he might be and now he was calling for her. She was absolutely certain that it was not part of her dream. She could feel him. He was closer than she thought. He was in Baleton. 

It was in the darkest hours just before dawn, but she didn’t care. She pulled on her old coat and cap, yanked her rough leather boots onto her feet and hurriedly jammed her meager belongings in her rucksack – all that she owned now, and made her way downstairs to settle up her rents. Her next stop was at the carriage station a few blocks down from the boarding house, where she booked an expedited one-way carriage to Baleton. It was eye-wateringly expensive, but Billie Lurk hadn’t had to worry about money for a good many years. As she settled into the carriage, she let her thoughts carry themselves freely. For years she had practiced what she wanted to say to Daud, and now here on the eve of the very event she couldn’t think of a goddamned thing. In a few hours time she would see him again. She hoped that she would have thought of something by then, but decided that the words would choose themselves when the time was right.


	37. Enter Thomas

Thomas sat as comfortably as he could at his small cramped desk on the passenger freighter Mackinnon. He was twitching with anticipation as much as he was twitching with discomfort. His belly, though not overly large was not as taut as it had once been long ago, and it kept bumping the edge of the desk as the ship listed in the rough waters between Tyvia and Gristol. He was scribbling his dispatch madly, cursing softly each time the freighter shifted causing his pen to scratch through his otherwise neat handwriting. 

Just a week or so ago, maybe a few days more, he had received an urgent message via express courier at his office in Redmoor. While such dispatches were not uncommon, the contents of this particular one were astounding. 

The courier had arrived at his office sweating and panting, clearly having made his way by whatever means necessary to deliver the message. The dispatch came written on tattered paper in a cramped and uneven hand, and had but a single line: 

_Very rare cutlery found – a large knife, fine Serkonan craftsmanship, vintage 1837 – highly valuable, in good working condition, unannounced silent auction by invitation only._

The courier stamp was hand-marked Baleton, and the signature written in code. Thomas had read the dispatch once, and then again, his heart in his throat. He paid the courier, anxious to send him back on his way. _Daud_. Daud was in Baleton. He wanted to believe it regardless of how absurd it was to consider, particularly since he was evidently hiding out right under Mr. Merrock’s nose. Mr. Merrock was sure to be shocked. He would finally meet the man himself, and tried to imagine what his face looked like – and how it would change when Thomas told him of the news. 

Thomas had several subcontractors that he had hired since becoming a trusted member of Mr. Merrock’s network. This particular subcontractor was not especially trustworthy, so at first he had been skeptical. This line of work was known for its diamonds among the drub, but the drub outweighed the diamonds by tonnes. Still, it helped to have friends in low places just in case a lump of coal proved to be a diamond under a fine-grit polish. Thomas had no doubt that Mr. Merrock would consider this particular source untrustworthy even within the context of this particular line of business. He had decided that he would check out the lead in Baleton himself, and whether it proved solid or not was no matter. He planned to surprise Mr. Merrock in person regardless, given the stunning nature of the tip. He knew he needed to work quickly. This tip was new and raw, and Thomas knew that he was very likely the only one that knew about it so far. 

Thomas called in a few favors and that very same day arranged for a boarding on the Mackinnon when it would arrive into port at Redmoor later in the week. It came at another’s expense as the Mackinnon was fully booked as it generally was by the time it made its way up and around from Driscol to Redmoor, but he didn’t care if Empress Emily herself had been displaced, he was going to Baleton and he didn’t care who had to be inconvenienced to get there. 

The hours were tipping into that darkest moment before dawn when the cabin started to go dark, and the walls looked like they were tipping in. Thomas suddenly felt ill and dizzy. The air had taken on a purplish hue, and for a second Thomas thought that he must be having a heart attack or a stroke from his excitement. He gripped the edge of the desk, clenching his teeth and he was wholly unprepared for the gravelly scream that roared through his head at full volume

_...Thomas answer me fucking hell answer me THOMAS **THOMAS!!!** goddamn you..._

Thomas reeled, his head snapping back at the sound of Daud’s voice. Dear gods it sounded like he was right here in the cabin with him! Thomas looked around the cabin cautiously with owlish bugged eyes, sweating and pale - expecting to feel his head tumbling off of his shoulders at any second. Daud had never sounded this angry or out of control before. A minute passed, two, and then silence. The air had returned to normal, the walls of the cabin as sturdy and upright as ever. Thomas gingerly stepped over to the small cabin sink, dry heaving as he splashed tepid water over his face, and through his mustache and beard. He ran both hands through his hair, slicking it back. He looked into the mirror, dark circles under his eyes where none had been before. He would be in Baleton in less than two day’s time. He knew now beyond any shadow of a doubt that Daud was there. He hoped that when he came face to face with Daud, that Daud would not see what Thomas saw in the mirror before him: an average slightly portly man whose best years were behind him, once a Whaler - but no more.


	38. The Doc is in

Anne Bonny sat by Daud’s cot in the back of her shop for a long time watching him sleep, finally peacefully after a particularly rough go at it. It had been a long night, and the sun was beginning to come up. She decided that today was a good day to keep the ‘closed’ sign in place on the front door of the bakery. She wanted to be able to assess him when he finally woke up. No telling how long that would take. Daud shifted in his sleep, turning and grumbling some half-words and phrases that didn’t quite make it to words. 

She didn’t like seeing Daud like this. No one that knew him, _really_ knew him would have liked seeing the big Knife like she had found him earlier in the night. The idea of _Daud_ helpless was simply ridiculous. It was painful to see him like this. Oh, she knew perfectly well that Herne Merrock was Daud. Had known it all along. It would have taken considerably more than glasses and facial hair for her not to recognize him. Like many others in the 'trade' she was in awe of Daud in her younger years. She could count the number of times she had spotted him in person during his Dunwall days on one hand, but those times were burned into her memory. Daud sightings were rare before the conspiracy - and those in her circle, and in other circles considered it a damn near badge of honor to have actually laid eyes on him and _lived_. There was something about him that was identifiable far outside of something simple like physical appearance. She could feel it still from time to time when he would come into the bakery, but as he grew older it grew fainter until she just thought of him as 'Hearne' - Daud fading to a ghost deep inside of him.

She remembered the first time she saw him in Baleton, and had gone immediately to Hatter Wilde to let him know. Wilde was certain Daud had come to settle the score from the last time he saw him at the Textile Mill in Draper’s Ward. Wilde had mouthed off to him, feeling comfortable at the time that he would never see Daud again – he had no reason to worry back then. Daud had not been there on official killing business – just to have a chat with The Geezer, evidently. When Anne told Wilde about Daud being in Baleton, Wilde’s first thought was that he needed to protect Celia, but it became apparent with time that Daud was in Baleton pretty much for the same reason that he and Anne had ended up there – to start a new life far from Dunwall, and put their bloody pasts behind them. They grew to know him as Hearne Merrock, and while it wouldn’t exactly be called a friendship, they enjoyed the camaraderie that the merchants of Baleton had, with Hearne as a solid member. The man was a hard worker, that much was evident. He had worked his way up from a laborer to a respected businessman, and the former Hatters saw no reason to make mention of his past. If Daud had recognized either of them, he never let on and Anne and Wilde returned the favor. 

Every once in a while, one of Anne’s boy’s would pop in and ask if she needed anything – her sons were her pride and joy, and she often let them run the shop if she had to run out for various things. Last night, her oldest boy watched the back counter of the black market while she decided to head over to the ‘Flask to see if there were any pastys left, and have a glass of a good stout. She didn’t make it much past the bar though. She had passed Gryffid on his way home, and he was more than a few sheets to the wind. He bid her a good night, and started to go along on his way and then stopped. Gryffid was worried about Hearne – he gave her a basic rundown of what had happened, and at first Anne wasn’t sure why he was telling her this. When he told her about how Hearne could barely stand, and then took off running after Rose in the middle of the night, Anne became a little more interested but probably not for the reasons Gryffid would have thought. Anne was honestly afraid that Daud hadn’t quite put his killing days behind him. Gryffid asked if she had the time to maybe look around a little bit and make sure he wasn’t face-down in a ditch somewhere. Gryffid could barely stand himself, and so Anne sent him on his way with an assurance that she would see what she could find out. 

When she got to the ‘Flask it was clear that something significant had gone down. Nan was a little pale, and told Anne what had happened. Lib had gone out to run an errand, else Anne would have asked her to come along. Just in case. After hearing the story that Nan had to tell, and the bits that the other patrons chipped in Anne began to worry that maybe Daud or someone else could be in real trouble. She left and walked back to her store to get her black bag. Something told her that she was going to need it. She packed a few things that would come in handy for the circumstances and then headed up the path toward the castle ruins – that was the last place that he had been seen. It hadn’t been more than a quarter hour since, so he couldn’t have gotten far. 

She walked up the path cautiously – the air felt strange tonight. She was reminded of nights in Dunwall when things would take a decidedly eldritch turn. Dunwall was filthy with black magic, and there were many nights when one could smell it in the air over the stagnant water and industrial waste. It wasn’t quite like that tonight, but close. She could sense danger though - some instincts never quite faded when the Hat came off. It wasn’t long before she spotted Daud up ahead, weaving left and right – his feet and legs at odds with his mind, evidently. He was yelling hoarsely, his words making very little sense. She wondered if he was hallucinating and when she heard a few names from the old days, she decided that he probably was. 

She played it safe, staying back just far enough to stay out of his sight. There would have been a time long ago where even from twice the distance she would have been in danger of him appearing just behind her with his blade at her throat. The years don’t erase that sort of fear, so she stayed back at a relatively safe distance. Her heart leaped in her throat when she saw him suddenly disappear and then reappear a short distance away. She could barely make him out in the dark, but she could see that he had collapsed where he had reappeared. She ran ahead, her concern for him outweighing her fear. She was for all intents and purposes a doctor, even though she hadn’t finished out her time at the Academy – and in times like this, her instincts took over. She rushed on ahead, not seeing him at first. She was confused – he should have been right at her feet and she turned to see if she had somehow missed him, or if he had rolled into the deep ditch that ran along the left side of the path. When she turned back around, he was there on the ground right where he should have been. She shook her head, deciding to tackle that mystery later. Right now, he needed help – she could see that he was flat on his back and struggling to turn over. And then, nothing. He had gone still. 

She had approached him gently, calling his name but he seemed to be unconscious. His eyes were open, and for a second Anne thought he may be dead but when she knelt at his side she could see the even rise and fall of his chest. She put her cheek to his mouth to check his breathing, and then checked his pulse at his neck. Steady and even. That was a good sign. She checked his mouth, pulling his chin down to make sure he wasn’t harboring a mouthful of vomit that might choke him and she smelled something coming out of his mouth that wasn’t quite alcohol. She began to think he may have been poisoned. She reached in her bag for the purgative, and cradling his neck began dripping it slowly down over his tongue and into his throat. It wouldn’t take more than a few drops, she figured – and she was right. 

The effect was sudden and violent. Daud’s eyes shot open in shock, and she helped him turn to his side as he purged again and again. She had never smelled this sort of thing before - it smelled a bit like Dunwall mud with a touch of something sharp and metallic, overpowering the general smell of vomit. She was certain that it needed to be outside of him and not inside. Finally, he was down to spitting out the last mucousy remnants of a thick red and blue liquid and he regained full consciousness not more than a few moments later. He sat up, confused and had a wild look in his eyes – something between anger and disgust. When his eyes focused on Anne, his eyes cleared and he growled hoarsely – his throat inflamed with the purging. 

“Anne?! What.. what happened?”

Anne shushed him, and convinced him to come back with her to her shop. She didn’t want to take him home – she didn’t want to alarm Lily, and Daud clearly needed to be watched a bit longer. Daud let her lead him there, his arm over her shoulder and he seemed fairly able to walk, stumbling only occasionally – more from shock than whatever it was that he had drunk. 

When they got back to the bakery, Anne settled Daud in on a cot in the back room of the black market and covered him with a thick woolen blanket. It was safest there for the time being. Daud laid down, and within minutes had fallen into a deep sleep. Anne wasn’t sure what it was he had been dosed with, so sat at his bedside watching and waiting in case she needed to take further action. She would occasionally wipe his face and mouth down with a warm damp rag, catching whatever happened to make its way out of his nose and mouth. She couldn’t smell that odd odor on the rag and was satisfied that he had purged it all out. She sat with her hands on her knees, fatigue setting in. She took off her glasses, rubbed her eyes and as she was putting her glasses back on, she could see that Daud was beginning to wake up.


	39. Lily takes flight

Lily looked around her room for a last time, checking to see if there was anything else that she thought she may need. She had nearly finished packing, and had just enough room left for a few more small things. She would have preferred to take everything, but was limited to what she and Lib could carry themselves. She had packed all of her ‘Rat gear that she had, and her schoolbooks and supplies. She knew she wouldn’t be returning to school for a while, and asked Lib to head to the school after she got settled in and explain that Lily would be taking a leave of absence, but had every intention of returning. She figured that she could continue to practice her reading and writing to pass the time. She would be spending a lot of time indoors for the time being. Lib had already promised to arrange regular parcels of food, so she was set for that and the shed out in the Wilds was near enough to a communal water pump that she was comfortable with that as well. She went into her bathroom to pack up her toiletries, and as she was reaching under her sink for the box of neatly folded cloths a thought drifted through her memory _… when was your last moon time child…_ but she shrugged it away. There was too much going on to worry about that right now. She packed those up along with her soaps and a few towels.

Her large rucksack was full, and the one she found in Mr. Merrock’s ( _Daud’s?!_ ) closet was now nearly full as well. She felt guilty taking it, but given the circumstances she was more concerned about her safety than her thievery. She grabbed a few more things here and there – trinkets that she had collected over the years, and a set of silverware, a cup, a plate and a bowl. 

Finally, she was ready to go. She turned and looked around the house but had one last thing she had decided to do.

**************

Earlier that night, when she heard the knocking she was startled but not overly concerned. Couriers rarely came at night, but sometimes they did if they had been delayed in their journey. She figured it was one of Mr. Merrock’s shipments that had come in from some far off place. When she went downstairs and opened the back service door and saw Lib Fury standing there, her mind went blank. For so long she had a litany of lies ready for the chance that someone from her past might approach her: denying that she was Lily, pretending to be mute, and so on. Her litany failed her and she merely goggled at Lib for a moment, and unable to speak simply opened the door further and gestured her in. Lib had said just a single word: “Lily” and as if a dam had broken inside her, Lily’s face erupted into tears – her sobs raw and wracking. With an instinct she hadn’t known she had, Lib opened her arms and Lily fell into them – against the strong familiar warmth of Lib Fury. Lib let her cry for a while, until the sobs became hitches and then quieted into sniffles. When Lily stepped back, her eyes were swollen and her skin blotched but one thing was sure: she was very glad to see Lib. 

The dream had confused and upset her – she didn’t quite trust it yet, but some significant shift was happening, she could feel it, and even more intensely so with Lib showing up at her doorstep like this. She and Lib walked up to the second floor, and to the kitchen and sat down at the table. Mr. Merrock was out, probably drinking with Gryffid Willems or doing whatever it was he did at his shop into the wee hours of the morning – so the house was quiet. It had been a while since he had gone out, and Lily hoped that whatever he was doing was at least entertaining. 

The shock of seeing Lib wore off quickly, and Lily was interested in what brought her to her door in the middle of the night after so many years. Lib explained that she had never lost sight of Lily, and that all this time she had been watching over her. Lily’s eyes burned with tears – tears of shame and sadness that she had turned her back on Lib, but also happy tears to know that someone had been watching over her. Someone who cared for her deeply still. 

Lib’s conversation took a serious turn, and she explained what had happened in the ‘Flask the night H.H. met Rose. When Lily asked Lib to describe her, she wasn’t at all surprised to find that it was the strange woman from the lighthouse. Lily urged her on, though Lib seemed to grow more uncomfortable as she talked. Lily was outraged that H.H. had abandoned Lottie for that _woman_ – particularly knowing that Lottie was pregnant. She knew perfectly well what kind of man H.H. was but she never would have guessed that he would walk out on Lottie for any reason. He had loved her, or so Lily thought. When Lib told her about the attack on the youngest ‘Rat Daf Lily went pale. She didn’t know Daf, but the idea of H.H. harming a little one was absurd. He never would have done that but evidently he did, nearly killing the boy. Lib explained that Lottie was safe with Cholly watching over her, and some mean little part of Lily's mind thought _I bet_. Everyone knew Cholly was in love with Lottie, though he never would admit it. Well, at least she was in good hands. 

Lib looked sad, and paused for a moment before telling her that there was more. She relayed the conversation between Rose and H.H. nearly to the word. The longer she talked the more pale Lily became. H.H. _knew!_. She knew she had to leave Baleton immediately, and started to jump up in a panic but Lib calmed her down and told her to sit. When she started talking about Daud and the story that Rose had cooked up about Lily becoming his protégé and the plan to take over the 'Rats, Lily became quiet. The dream. No. This couldn’t be happening. Lily listened until Lib ran out of things to say, and questions to answer.

So, Mr. Merrock was Daud. Of course. It made sense now – his reflexes, his scars, his demeanor. She didn’t want to believe it, but on a deep level she knew it to be true. That was what she had seen in his eyes. It was what Mr. Merrock had kept locked behind them all these years. She now recognized that power in him as the Void. She looked down, and didn’t say anything for what seemed like a long time, the minutes elongating unnaturally into what seemed like hours. She started to tell Lib her dream, but something deep down that she couldn’t explain caused the words to die on her lips. She knew she mustn’t say anything right now. That aside, she still needed to get the hell out of Baleton before H.H. could get to her. 

She and Lib made a quick plan to pack up as much of Lily’s stuff as the two of them could carry, and set about the task with efficient urgency. There was no time to waste. It was a long walk to the Wilds. 

Lib swung the heaviest of the rucksacks over her broad shoulder, and could have carried the other with ease but Lily stubbornly refused. She always had been headstrong in that way, but Lib liked that about her. Lily walked around the house once more lightly touching things here and there as if to memorize them - the only home she had ever really known, and then told Lib that there was one last thing she needed to do. 

Lily headed to her room and took out a piece of her lined school paper and a stubby lead pencil from her desk, and painstakingly wrote a short and simple note in her carefully rounded script, saying no more than she needed to say. She took the note upstairs to Mr. Merrock’s room and laid it where he was sure to find it. She placed it on his old lumpy pillow, the white paper clearly visible on the gray faded ticking. She looked around his room – at his precisely tucked drab wool blankets pulled taut on his bed, his socks and underthings drying on a chair, the stark cleanliness of his bathroom – all the things of his that summed up the tightly wound man that he always was, a man that she had grown fond of over the years despite his grouchy closed-off demeanor. She closed her eyes, and breathed in deeply the smell of his Glenheim soap, the faint fug of old cigarettes and a hint of Orbon, and something else – a hint of something deep and masculine, something almost feral that she couldn’t identify but deep inside her mind something that she now _remembered_. She knew she couldn’t stay. For all it was worth, he was still Daud – a killer, and evidently something far worse if she trusted the words she had heard in her dream. No. She wasn’t ready to think about that. Not yet. 

She looked out his window at the sky beginning gray into morning. It was time to go. She turned and walked away shutting his door quietly behind her. 


	40. Billie Lurk arrives in Baleton

Billie Lurk stepped out of the carriage and tipped the driver well. He had gotten her to Baleton in what she was sure was record time. It was midmorning, and the carriage drove on along leaving her standing there at the intersection unsure where to go next. The breeze was cool, and the air damp and heavy with impending rain. The sun peeked in and out from between the rapidly moving clouds and mounting thunderheads. Weather like this usually bothered her stump, made it ache – but this didn’t seem to be the case today. She felt lighter somehow, and even the headache that had been threatening all morning dissipated. She to this day continued to get horrific headaches that started after she lost her right eye. Some days were fine, in fact often many days would pass without one of her headaches, but other days would see her curled into a ball in a dark place willing the pain to go away. Nothing could stop it. Once she saw the phantom shimmers in the peripheral vision of her missing eye, it was too late and there was a very narrow window of time before the headache landed like a load of smashed glass in her skull. 

She had seen witches and wise-women and scientists and doctors but had yet to find a single thing that any of them had tried that would even remotely touch the pain. Dr. Hypatia, _Alexandria_ had come close after they first met during the coup. After Dr. Hypatia boarded, she at first spent much of her time in her room, but as she grew more comfortable doing so, began to spend time with Billie up on the deck looking out over the dark water - watching for whales, but mostly just watching the water in general. It had been relaxing for Dr. Hypatia's shattered but healing psyche. During one of those quiet times between dockings in the various places they had been during that ordeal, Alexandria and Billie had been talking about nothing in particular and Billie had stopped mid-sentence and Dr. Hypatia had watched the pain creep onto Billie’s face as a headache started in on her. Like any good doctor, she expressed not only concern but a desire to help. At first Billie had shrugged her off, but finally relented as the pain started to take hold. She had gone to lay down in her bunk, and Alexandria busily cooked up what remedy she could from her meager supplies. Dr. Hypatia had come to her bedside with a cool damp rag, and a small vial of some dark green liquid that was perhaps the worst tasting concoction that Billie had ever had the displeasure of consuming. Dr. Hypatia dabbed at Billie's skin with the cool rag and it had felt wonderful, enough to distract from the taste of the solution. For what it was worth it did take some of the edge off, though, and Billie continue to gag it down as needed. Dr. Hypatia seemed to have a decent supply of whatever it was she made it with, and it helped Billie a great deal. 

When Alexandria left the ‘Wale, only Billie knew the reality of her sudden departure. After the painful necessity of having to part ways – Billie had (understandably) not heard from Alexandria again, nor had Billie sought her out when her remaining remedy ran out. She was willing to forego a respite from her pain if it meant sparing Alexandria any further heartbreak. She hadn’t meant to let it go so far but Billie was desperate for a cure and chose to ignore the increasingly obvious signs of affection: a gentler than usual touch on the face, or the arm. A lingering pat on the back – nothing untoward, but clearly veering closer to affection. Alexandria had been fragile after what she had been through, and Billie took care to be gentle but firm in her rejection. She had seen the sadness welling up in Alexandria’s eyes, and what heart Billie possessed had hurt for her. She didn’t want to hurt Alex. Billie was always grateful for those who cared for her, but she could not become tangled with another person in this way. Not now, and perhaps not ever. 

Ever since leaving Dunwall in 1852, Billie felt drawn toward something – someone. It was a vague nagging in the back of her mind that never left her during her time looking for Daud. She felt strongly, in a way that she couldn’t articulate that she needed to stay within Gristol. Was it Daud she was feeling? Someone else? She had decided to leave just before the final confrontation that would end Delilah's coup, and hopefully end Delilah as well. Attano blood was strong, and she knew the coup would end in their favor. Anton had initially wanted to go with her, but she convinced him to stay. He was old, and as much as she loved the old man she had no intention of carting his decrepit arse all over Gristol. She was also unsure how Anton would feel should they find Daud. He had told her all about Daud's time at the Academy, and Billie was frankly shocked at the story of how he had been rusticated. Though her loyalties would always lie with Daud, she felt Anton was right to show him the door. She didn't imagine a reunion between the two of them would go especially well. No, he needed to stay here. Period. Shortly after leaving Anton on the ‘Wale and taking off on foot, carrying with her only what she could fit in her rucksack – she sent back word to him to go ahead and sell the ‘Wale and everything on it. Yes, everything. Excluding what he wanted for himself, or course. Even with the percentage from the sale that she insisted he keep, the amount she got from the sale was astonishing. Someone must have really wanted that boat! She was a little sad at leaving behind the reminders of her past, in particular her Whaler mask - and wondered what Daud would say had she shown up with it. Hell, what if she walked into wherever he was wearing it? She would smile a little, thinking of the times she had liked to tease and provoke him. Would he find it funny? Distasteful? She tried to purge her mind of any images that came to mind of him so near death that he wouldn’t recognize her or be able to respond in any way. 

She had never heard him sound so out of control and angry. The Daud she knew back then was far too tightly controlled to be angry in that way. If he showed anger at all, it was a cold and sterile anger that led directly to the eradication of its cause. This Daud? This was the sound of someone screaming from an out of control pyre – a fiery incoherent anger. She wondered which Daud was waiting for her here in Baleton.

She looked out across the intersection where the carriage dropped her off at the businesses district stretching down one way, and the waterfront district down the other. It seemed quiet for a business day, even for Baleton. There weren’t a lot of people out – she watched a couple walking slowly across the town center by the monument fountain, their backs to her. They looked like a typical old couple – her black hair gently streaked with gray, blowing around her face as she leaned in to him and his hair a short wild birdsnest of salt-and-pepper – his demeanor stiff and closed-off, as gentlemen of a certain generation tended to be. The woman had her arm looped through the man’s arm and Billie was touched at how gently the woman helped him as he seemed to have trouble walking. The old couple walked on past the monument fountain and Billie looked away, her mind on other things. 

She could see ‘Closed’ placards on a couple of the businesses – the bakery was closed, unfortunately. She was looking forward to having a few of the incredible hot-pop rolls that she had the last time she had been through Baleton. The General Merch was something else now, and whatever a ‘Curious Goods’ shop was, it appeared to be closed as well. She had been meaning to stop in and grab a few minor supplies at the ‘Merch, but ‘curious goods’ wasn’t what she had in mind, nor would they likely be useful in any way. If the bakery was closed, then the market in the back probably would be as well. She'd take care of supplies tomorrow.

She decided to head toward the waterfront, knowing even after the long while since she last had been to Baleton, that there would be at least a handful of Worley produce stands there to grab a bite to eat from. She couldn’t imagine Baleton without Worley produce stands. She wasn’t quite hungry enough to head to the ‘Flask (if it was still there, of course), and figured she’d grab a heartier bite to eat when she got there. She was hoping there was a vacancy – unless something had changed in the past several years, there wasn’t likely any place to stay besides the ‘Flask, and she was just too damned old to sleep rough anymore. She’d figure something out. 

The waterfront had improved greatly since her last visit. The last time she had brought the ‘Wale into port, the pier hadn’t been built yet. She took her time wandering the waterfront, eating an apple and watching the people around her. She could not figure out exactly where Daud would be hiding here in Baleton. There were very few abandoned buildings here, and the town was tightly wound around itself in such a way that it would be difficult for someone to hide for long - particularly someone as notorious as Daud. She walked past the pier toward the sunning area, meaning to rest for a bit on one of the large white wooden slat-chairs that lined the shore, their stubby legs dug firmly into the damp sand. It was drizzling lightly, more of a mist but that was no matter. She sat heavily into one of chairs and laid back, her bag on her lap and let her eye close for a moment or two. She did not notice the woman staring at her from the pier. 

After a short doze, Billie woke up and continued her walk. She walked through the port, seeing a few familiar faces from over the years – rough men and women she had lived the maritime life alongside, waving at each other when their paths crossed at different ports. They didn’t wave at her now, but she wouldn’t have expected them to recognize her even if she still had her other eye and arm. She hiked up toward the Hemlock processing plant, passing what she was sure was still the ‘Rat hideout even though no one seemed to be around at the moment. She had always been amused by the idea of fierce wee kids running about town playing at being Howlers, or Hatters or Bottlers. Not that they weren’t dangerous in their own way, but the idea of a child, no matter how fierce or brave, navigating a place like the Flooded District back in her time was horrifying. The deadly, if not fatal, river krusts would have been the least of their worries in a place like Dunwall. 

She circled back around in general way, heading back toward town. Not much to see at the hemlock refineries, she figured - and she doubted that Daud would be hiding around there anyway. Anyone who knew enough about him to look for him knew well his curious immunity to poisons. Too obvious. 

The sun was getting higher in the sky behind the thickening clouds, and she decided to head to the ‘Flask. She made her way there in no particular hurry, taking in all she could along the way. Her senses seemed sharper somehow, and she decided to refine her lollygagging into observation. Though she was watchful, nothing really piqued her interest enough to watch for very long. She cut through the back alley of one of the Stridside buildings on the residential side of the town center and eventually made it around to the ‘Flask. As she recalled, there used to be a particularly frightening character working the door – but if the big woman was still around, she wasn’t around today evidently. She walked into the bar, not seeing any familiar faces and had a sit and an ale while waiting for a steak and ale pie. She smoked quietly, casually looking around at the other patrons. As she turned toward the corner of the bar, she caught eyes with a strange looking red-haired woman who was staring pointedly at her. Billie was used to it. The missing eye and arm were always a thing of curiosity it seemed, usually of the rude sort. Of course, it being a little further north, brown skin was a bit of a curiosity in itself. Billie stared back with no expression, turning away only when her steak and ale pie was set down in front of her, wonderfully fragrant steam escaping from the vents in the flaky golden crust. Any thoughts of the rude bitch sitting in the corner left her mind, as she set to the task of eating what was no doubt the best steak and ale pie in all the Isles.

************

Billie sat back from the empty bowl, and drained the last of the dregs of ale from her glass. She burped under her breath and lit a cigarette. To her delight, she saw the old battleaxe herself Ms. Abernathy making her way downstairs – a woman who even in her younger years still somehow managed to be an old woman. She had the same sour look on her face, but it relaxed a little as her eyebrows shot up and she exclaimed “Megan Foster, as I live and breathe. What in the everliving hell brings you back to this fucking dump?!” Billie stood, laughing and heartily shook Ms. Abernathy’s hand when she came around the bar – once like gripping an iron bar, but now a little softer as Ms. Abernathy had finally grown truly old. She and Ms. Abernathy caught up a little. Billie told her the story of how she lost her eye and arm (a version of it, anyway) and Billie asked about the big woman whose name she couldn’t remember – she could only remember ‘Hammer’, and Ms. Abernathy explained that Lib Fury was still around and would probably be back before the night was over. They shot the shit for a bit more, and Billie caught her looking over Billie's shoulder over at the corner where the strange woman was. Billie recognized the look on Ms. Abernathy's face and asked if there was trouble. Nah, Ms. Abernathy had said spitting – just a meddlesome creature who couldn’t seem to get the hint. She said this loud enough for the woman to hear, and when Billie glanced over, the strange red-head didn’t seem to be affected by it in any way. She just kept toying with her glass, appearing to be keeping busy at pretending like she wasn’t listening in.

Billie turned away and rolled her eye, and asked if there might be a vacancy as she planned to stay for a while. Ms. Abernathy said that she was in luck – one of her girls was out for the time being, and that for a decent amount of coin could be convinced to let Billie stay there. She winked, and then led Billie upstairs to Lottie’s old room to get settled in. Billie was grateful – though it wasn’t quite nighttime, she was bone-tired and a soft bed in a familiar place was just what she needed. She wanted to be well-rested before she found Daud, and though she was having some trouble accepting it, she wasn't sure she was ready to see him. Not tonight anyway. She stayed awake just long enough to take off her boots, and slept through the night dreaming of Diedre, a happy laughing Diedre - her eyes bulging and shiny black, whispering to Billie about all of the wonderful things in Baleton that she couldn't wait to show her.


	41. A note for Daud

_Daud was in the lock with his Whalers. It was nearly time to kill the Empress. How many times had he killed her like this? Hundreds, thousands? Always the same – the lock, then the stairs, and the guard knifed. Lurk, his backup, watching from a distance ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Blink, again, again, up on the roof now nearing the gazebo. Two down. Thomas transverses, takes his place and tethers Corvo. Emily. Then Jessamine, so brave as she pushes her daughter out of the way. She calls out for Corvo, and it is nearly time. His hand around her soft neck grinding the small bones of her throat in his grip, a tinge of red in his vision, he is ragingly hard in anticipation of sinking his blade as deep in Jessamine’s hot soft guts as he can. Time slows, the blade is close – slowly now, then he tenses his shoulder and forearm to maximize the thrust but wait… this isn’t right. He hears a rune singing to him. That didn’t happen, there had been no rune here. He hesitates and looks around. Time has stopped completely. Corvo dangling, Emily cringing, Thomas holding fast. His blade? Where did it go? His gloves are gone, his wristbow – gone. He looks down at himself – he isn’t Daud, he is Hearne Merrock. The rune song edges up a pitch, grows more intense – it fills his head, too much. Too much. He looks down at Jessamine, only it isn’t Jessamine. It is **Lily**. He jerks his hand away from her throat, and she stays in place bent backward over the edge of the gazebo. She looks different – swollen somehow. Her eyes are soft and wet, her lips fuller – the buttons of her uniform shirt are straining their catches, the cloth of her shirt pulled tight against heavier rounder breasts, and her belly is hard and round pushing out her shirt in a small neat dome. What on earth? The singing from the rune seems to be centered from within Lily. But how? He walked from one side of her to the other, looking at her frozen form in horrified fascination – even her smell was different. The singing is confusing his thoughts, straining his concentration. The smell. Fertile. Fecund. **Pregnant**. Lily?! He reached out gingerly toward the mound of her stomach fully expecting her to burst into black shards and motes – a trick of the Outsider. Instead when his hand got within a half-foot of her belly, his mark burst into agonizing pain. He felt his skin tearing around the mark as if it were being ripped from him, stripping it out in long black bloody threads from where it was rooted in his brain. The pain was intense, unbearable. The rune called to him even louder, its song pitching up even further into more and more painful registers. Blood began to run from his ears, his nose – he put both hands over his ears to stop the noise, stop the pain, stop the pain, stop stop stop stop stop_

He opened his eyes with a gasp, his heart hammering in his chest. He blinked stupidly into the weak milky morning sunlight. He turned his head, disoriented – for some reason expecting to see Thomas crouched by his side but it was a woman. A woman with dark hair and glasses… Anne. Yes, Anne Bonny. He remembered now. He sat up, his head swimming but not in any pain.

“Bout time you came around old man, I was starting to get worried” Anne had said, and Daud just blew out in deep sigh. He stretched out his hands and arms, twisting left and right halfway expecting sharp and sudden pain from some place or other. His face felt raw and he vaguely remembered falling. Anne stood up to get her bag, and pulled up her chair to sit directly in front of Daud. He didn’t really think an exam was necessary but Anne insisted. She recounted to him what she had seen on the path as she peered into his ears. She pried open his eyelids and shined a tiny light into his eyes - back and forth across each one, evidently pleased with what she saw. She pushed up the tip of his nose, peering with her little light into even there. She continued talking, and left out nothing. Daud felt like he had swallowed a chunk of ice when she calmly recounted his blink and reappearance. He said nothing, primarily because her fingers had his mouth pried open and she was shining her light down his throat. When she sat back and wiped her hands, Daud wasn’t sure what to say. Anne read his expression, and answered the question she knew he was struggling to ask. 

“I’ve _always_ known, Hearne. It’s been so long now that calling you Daud just doesn’t seem right, you know?” Daud looked down, stunned. “How did you know?” Anne smiled – insofar as Anne generally did, just the corner of one side of her mouth curving up, and shook her head. “I’m a Hatter from Dunwall, Hearne. I recognized you the first day I saw you fresh off the boat on the docks. I doubt anyone outside of Dunwall would have known who you were, though. You certainly looked different.” Daud found himself oddly relieved that someone that he liked and trusted as much as Anne knew.

She and Daud talked about those last days at Drapers Ward. Daud told her about his experience at the Textile Mill, and how he wished now he had given The Geezer the death that he had been begging for. Daud was a little confused though by Anne’s story – they didn’t really let women wear the Hat back then, did they? He would have certainly remembered her if he saw her there. Anne explained that it had taken a few years before women got to wear the Hat in the same way that the gentlemen did. She was younger then, and wasn’t considered to be important enough to be at the Textile Mill during that time. Hatter _Wilde_ was there though, and they both had a chuckle over that. Yes, Wilde knew too and Anne explained how they had decided amongst themselves to leave Daud be.

They talked about Mortimer Hat, and the horrific things that Trimble had done to him. Anne had been learning a little from Nurse Trimble here and there after her stint at the Academy fell short. Sad but common story. When the parents pass away and the money stops flowing, the choices for an orphaned unattractive bookish young woman with no marriage prospects during those times were narrowed to either kicking ass, cleaning up after ass, or peddling ass. Anne preferred the ‘kicking ass’ path, and the only cleaning up she intended to do would be the emergency medical variety. She had a mean right hook, and she had her medical supplies, impeccable manners, a discreet bedside manner, and soon became known in the streets as Young Doc ‘x’ – Anne omitted her family name purposely – she explained to Daud that there was no doubt whatsoever that he would instantly recognize her family name, and she would prefer it stay lost to time for the safety of her children. Daud understood. She had become allied primarily with the Hatters over time, and continued to learn what she could from Trimble. One day, Trimble had taken her into confidence and let her into old Mortimer’s office. No one had been allowed to see him for a very long time, and it had been a long time since he had been seen outside of his office, so she wasn’t sure what to expect. When she saw him hooked up to the tubes and wires, she had become ill nearly instantly. He smelled like a mix of old piss, intestinal reside, carbolic acid and whale oil. He was semi-conscious, only moving slightly. She was horrified at the thick tubes that entered his chest, and even more so by the fact that the skin had _healed around them_. How long had he been hooked up like this? She stammered while Trimble boasted and bragged about his ‘accomplishment’ and eventually he led her out of the room, imparting on her how important it was she keep this a secret, and expressing delight that he would be able to pass this knowledge, and The Geezer, on to her. She fled Dunwall that night. She managed to get past the blockades, and spent a good number of weeks living nomadically – stopping in this village or that, offering medical care in exchange for room and board, and sometimes if she was lucky a carriage ride in whichever direction it happened to be going. She arrived in Baleton roughly six months before Daud, already pregnant with her oldest son. Wilde had showed up in town not long after.

The sky was getting lighter behind the building storm clouds. Anne was tired, and it was time to get Hearne home. Daud was very resistant to being walked home like an old invalid, but Anne insisted. She pulled on her long black coat, and waited for Daud to pull on his and they made their way out into dreary morning. Daud could not seem to give over to being helped, and did not lean in to Anne for support – rather she leaned in toward him, looping her arm through his to help keep him steady. He was in no pain, but was still wobbly – his legs stiff and uncooperative. They made their way past the monument, the wind blowing Anne’s hair all around her face. He was grateful for her help, even though he was entirely too proud to admit he needed it. He was ready to get home – he had to piss like a Tyvian racehorse, and wanted to lay down and simply rest. He doubted he would sleep, but laying in his bed for a number of hours was exactly what he needed to do.

They made it to his place, and went around to the back service entrance where he let himself in. He shook Anne’s hand, and said he owed her one – hell, more than one and he would one day return the favor. Anne tipped an imaginary hat, said her farewells and made her way back to the bakery.

Daud trudged upstairs, piecing together what he could of last nights fractured memories. The house was quiet – it was a school day for Lily, and he glad she wasn’t here to see him right now. His hair stood up in spikes and corkscrews all over his head. It had gotten relatively long, and he reminded himself that he should probably be making a trip over to the Barber and Surgeon fairly soon. He could smell himself – he smelled like he felt, and went straight upstairs to take a long overdue piss, and a shower. He undressed quickly and ran the water as hot as he could stand it, and scrubbed himself well with a rough rag and his Glenheim soap. Once out of the shower, he stood in front of the mirror with his towel around his waist and took a closer look at himself. Yes, it was undeniable that he was looking younger. The hair on his chest was less gray, and his skin looked like it fit him better. His beard and hair were salt-and-pepper instead of just ‘salt’. He ran a dab of gentleman’s oil through his beard and hair, and on a whim combed his hair straight back from his brow. It was long enough now that it stayed put when combed back and didn’t spring up. He looked very much like his old self again, except with a beard. He came very near to shaving his beard off on a whim, but decided against it. That _plus_ the absence of his glasses would be pushing it. 

He got dressed in a fresh undershirt and undershorts and then fell back on his pillow – only to feel the crunch of paper under his head. Confused, he sat up, picked up the paper and through the damp spots left by his hair he read

**I no who you are. I no what you did to me.**

The determination and precision behind the heavy strokes of Lily’s looping child-like handwriting filled Daud with a sense of something like sadness, but that wasn’t quite the right emotion. It wasn’t pity either – but that feeling one gets when seeing someone struggling and working hard and taking pride in something that comes so easily to others. Lily was gone. He didn’t even bother going to look in her room. He knew that it would be stripped bare of her things. He wasn’t ready to see that. He sat there for a long time staring off into space, his elbows on his knees, the note dangling from his hand – trembling in time with his hand, and the nervous jitter of his knee.


	42. The shack in the 'Wilds

The sun was sinking low in the sky when Lib and Lily got to the shack in the 'Wilds. Lib had been expecting an actual shack but it was, in fact, a well-built and sturdy cabin just big enough to house a person, maybe two if they tolerated one another well enough. Lily was surprised to find the shack unoccupied – it was just as she had left it a couple of years ago. It looked like no one had been in since she had last been there, and it was dry and clean inside from what she could see in what was left of the light of the dying afternoon sun. She wondered why the ‘Wilds folk hadn’t claimed it for their own after so much time unattended, but figured ownership had a different meaning over here – she very much doubted that ‘finders keepers’ worked well, if at all, here. Lily set about unpacking a few of the things she knew she would need right away: the dishes, a few clothes and last of the food that had been in the larder at the Stridside place. She was incredibly tired. Her shock and fear had gotten her through the first three quarters of the way, but in the last stretch all her mind could focus on was hoping that the shack was still available and if it was, that the bed wouldn’t be too dirty or damp. By the time they got there, the bed could have been resting on a smoldering pile of dung and she still would have found it acceptable to lay down on. Her legs hurt, her back hurt and she was both starving and nauseated at the same time.

Lib had set about getting Lily settled in. Lily had told her that as far as she knew it had been sitting empty for a couple of years, and Lib had been thinking of vermin, rot, mold and other unpleasant things that she was probably going to insist on cleaning up herself but none of those things were present. There was an old brass globe-type whale-oil lamp hanging from a cord over a table, and after first smell-checking the oil for rancidity, carefully lit the lamp with her old flint-stick lighter to get a better look around the place. It had been a while since she had seen a lamp of this sort, and was impressed that it was not only clean and well-maintained but worked as well as it probably had several decades ago when it was new. She instructed Lily on the safest way to light and dim the oil lamp - even the most well-kept of them could blow the roof off a place like this if it were not handled with care. These oil lamps were slow-burners, and there was more than enough oil in the font to keep the lamp going for a while. There was a small whale oil tank in the corner that was nearly full, and Lib made mental note to check and refill the oil levels in the lamp when she returned in a few days. 

Lib looked around the well-lit cabin. It was the damndest thing she had seen. She didn’t see any sign of rodent droppings or creeping damp coming up through the floor – just a tightly shut, well insulated cabin that was spartan in both its amenities and its cleanliness. Lib checked the old potbellied stove in the corner inside and out, and checked the flue to make sure it was still ventilating properly. She got a fire going in the stove using the neat pile of dry kindling beside it, and sat on one of the chairs that were arranged by the rough, but skillfully built small round table. Lib couldn’t figure what the (former?) owner would have needed with four chairs – even just the two of them in here were within each other’s breathing space. Lib tapped her fingers on the table, worried for Lily. Worried what would happen when she got back to the ‘Flask. Ms. Abernathy had been understanding about Lib taking off, and she wondered if Ms. Abernathy thought that Lib was going to run the sort of errand that would have resulted in the hearty thrashing of one Hilliard Humphrey’s arse. Ms. Abernathy may have piss and vinegar running through her veins, but she was protective of her girls – not just as an investment, but as the only family the old woman really had. Lib was surprised that Ms. Abernathy hadn’t straight out suggested that Lib hand H.H. a beatdown if she just happened to be in his neighborhood. 

Ms. Abernathy had been furious when Lottie had been cast aside, _pregnant even_ \- for the strange woman Rose. She was initially reluctant to agree to have Lottie stay with Cholly for a while. Ms. Abernathy was convinced that sending Lottie to the ‘Rat hole was a death sentence for her, but Lib knew that it was most certainly a death sentence for H.H. instead if he showed his face around there. The 'Rats were mostly kids, yes – but there were a lot of them, and they were well-trained to defend themselves, and would have no trouble whatsoever practicing pre-emptive defense on Daf’s behalf. No, Lottie would be just fine and so would Lily, for now. H.H. hadn’t shown his face since what happened with Daf, and Lib couldn’t imagine a scenario where H.H. would have known about this cabin at any rate. He, like most in Baleton, avoided the ‘Wilds out of equal parts respect and fear. She wasn’t particularly worried about Daud either - the more she thought about it, the more it stank of bullshit. She couldn’t think of a single reason why someone like the Assassin Daud would risk coming out of years of hiding just to go Baleton and bother with a bunch of street kids. 

Lib shifted her bulk in the wooden chair, admiring the constructural fortitude of such a small armless chair built in such a solid way. It held her considerable weight with nary a shift or crack. It had been built with a number of unusual joints and crossovers between the supporting stretchers and inside the apron that she had never seen arranged in such a way, and certainly shouldn’t work – and yet, it felt as sturdy as if it had been hewn out of a solid block of stonewood. A smash over the head with one of these would damn near kill someone, and she made sure to mention this to Lily. Lily had a number of small weapons designed for stealth and quick exits, but blunt weapons were always a good thing to have around as well – even if it was something like a light, but particularly sturdy chair. Lily seemed to be settling in well, so Lib decided to go ahead and head back to the ‘Flask. It was a long walk, but it looked like the weather would hold until she could get back.

**************

Lily stood outside of the shack watching the sky for a while after Lib's broad back faded from her view in the darkness. It was not as cold as usual, and it was one of those nights where the very bottom of the sky along the horizon was painted in the brilliant colors of a dying fire. Oranges, reds and violent streaks of pink stained the darkness that was creeping in from above. Towering thunderheads were building slowly in the sky, bulging down out of the thick cover of high dark clouds. It had been misting all day, and Lily was tired but a red sky at night was always something she like to watch until it slowly dimmed to shades of charcoal and violet. Soon it was full dark, and in the ‘Wilds, full dark looked much different than it did in Baleton. A few cabins and houses in the ‘Wilds had sturdy whale-oil lamps hanging on tall ground-hooks by their front doors, but by and large it was pitch black except for the fat bottoms of the thunderheads up above lighting up from within. The thunder was getting louder, and the first hard spatters of rain were beginning to fall. Lily pulled her coat around herself a little tighter, and went inside. She considered nibbling on some of the dried fruit and nuts that she had, but decided against it. She was so tired that she felt sick. There was little to do now except sleep, and Lily was more than ready for it.


	43. Rose thinks fast

Deep from within its shadow form, Rose watched Lib Fury walking away from the cabin and stayed hidden in the tall brush as an extra precaution. The experiment was already in jeopardy now, and it did not intend to have it sent further awry. The arrival in Baleton of the brown skinned woman, Meagan Foster – or ‘Billie Lurk’, as she had appeared in Daud’s memories and thoughts, had alarmed Rose. It had sensed the Void in her more strongly than one could have possibly had without being marked. It had sensed Daud in her as well, very faintly – an old stain inside the woman that had faded to a whisper, and yet the woman had followed the whisper, chasing it down for years as if were a scream. There was something else there inside of this woman - something that Rose could not identify but recognized the pattern of its activity within the woman’s brain as something originating from the Outsider himself. This spoke to a far greater threat than it had originally considered. Rose had sensed that Megan Foster would not be the only one arriving in Baleton carrying this threat, and expedited its plan accordingly. 

It had already accelerated its training of H.H., with mixed results. Hilliard Humpreys was now fully adept with the technicalities of his Void abilities, but the abilities themselves had become more unstable and unpredictable the more he practiced them. Rose had assured him that this was nothing to be alarmed by, and had continued to push him to the limit of his ability to handle the influx into his brain. Over time, H.H.’s sense of empathy and other higher emotional functions had slowly decreased as his abilities increased. Rose had noticed this, but was not concerned by it, as it did not consider these higher functions as particularly useful in what it needed from H.H. It had continued pushing forward, underestimating the importance of these functions greatly. Eventually something had appeared to have finally broken deep within H.H.’s brain under Rose’s relentless training and he had nearly killed a young boy that very day. H.H. had drawn a great deal of unwelcome attention to himself and Rose, and it had taken immediate steps to return to the sphere under the strid to further reduce and fine-tune some of what was left of H.H.’s higher thinking skills as to avoid any further unwanted incidents. Late into that night, as H.H. slept fitfully in the castle ruins, Rose made some subtle calibrations from within the sphere to greatly reduce his autonomy and initiative, and H.H. had gone mostly quiet and compliant afterward. He still functioned well physically, but now seemed to be powered primarily by his malleable and obedient lower brain functions and by the Void flowing through him, rather than by the natural energy flux of the higher functions of his brain. Rose found this acceptable, as it would assure that H.H. would remain both quiet _and_ useful. 

Despite his continued physical capabilities, H.H. wasn’t looking too good and no doubt his altered appearance would draw even more attention – perhaps even draw attacks upon himself, attacks that would likely injure his already weakened state to entire uselessness. Rose kept him hidden in the castle ruins for the time being, and once he had recovered enough to survive the process, it was going to take him down under the strid to finish the process down there. After that, his appearance or the effect it would have on others would not matter and he would be able to come and go from under the strid at will. In the meantime, it was time to focus on the host and the specimen that was growing slowly inside of her. Rose watched as Lily finally went inside the cabin and closed the door. Once the host was asleep, Rose would need to work quickly.


	44. Chapter 44

Rose stood silent and still by Lily’s bedside, watching her sleep, touching her lightly here and there absorbing what information she could from the budding specimen, and making calculations against the host’s gestation time. It was determining as closely as possible the exact amount of time in which it could accelerate the process without killing the host, and would assure a viable fully imprinted specimen at the time of birth regardless of whether the birth was premature or at any time up until the expected time. The imprinting was happening in conjunction with the specimen’s brain function, and Rose no longer had the luxury of time to wait for the entire gestation process. Timing was critical – it could accelerate the gestation, but could not force the actual birth. The birthing process was the culmination of the imprinting process – this specimen would detach from the host at the precise moment that the imprinting was complete, not a millisecond before or after.

There was no way, not even for Rose or any other sentient being - to predict the exact moment when that would occur. Forcing the physical separation by manipulating the natural rhythm and timeline of the human whelping process would be disastrous. If the imprinting was not complete at the moment of physical separation from the host body, the Void would immediately retain and reabsorb its energy that Rose was imprinting it with, killing the specimen and leaving its body to be expulsed naturally. The brain of the specimen would quickly dissolve to a thick formless pink and yellow pulp - the sudden negative pressure within the skull casing extruding what was left of the brain forcibly from the various natural holes in its skull. This was certainly not in Rose’s best interests, so it took great care in its next steps.

There were still a number of months before the imprinting would be complete. At a certain point in the gestation – the ‘quickening’ as humans called it, Daud would be immediately alerted to the specimen’s presence through his own ties to the Void, and of course the bits of human matter of his own that lived and grew within the specimen. It was unsure how Daud’s mind would interpret this alert but it was certain that however his brain filtered the specimen’s call into meaning – his response would be visceral, immediate, and entirely unpredictable.

Rose left Lily and entered the strid through the eddy, and prepared the top of the tower for Lily. She was going to be here for a while, and Rose would need to adjust a few settings in the host’s biological makeup to keep it alive during the lengthy process. It was not concerned about the human need for sustenance – that was simple to adjust. It was mildly concerned about how Lily’s mind would accept the passage of time under the strid compared to that above it – but saw this as an acceptable risk in the face of no other viable option. It was not possible for Rose and Lily to leave Baleton without the specimen dying. Rose was simply not strong enough to continue its imprinting hold on the specimen without the strong consistent direct connection to the Void that the eddys in Baleton provided.

Once the specimen was born with the thing that was Rose firmly implanted in its brain and infused throughout every aspect of its very matter, Rose would no longer need eddys through which to travel. It would need nothing more than live humans: a living network of Void energy – unlimited pathways connecting directly to the Void and to each other, unhindered by lower-dimensional limitations. From one species to the next it would connect and connect and connect in all directions throughout all possible times and realities until it became all of reality itself. _Sure beats the hell out of trying it with a paintbrush_ , Rose thought to itself in a whisper of Delilah’s voice.

Under the strid at the top of the tower, Rose adjusted the sphere, testing the harmonics for accuracy with each manipulation to time and Lily’s human metabolic processes. It broke and tilted the most mathematically probable of one of the infinite impossible shapes within the sphere so that the sound of its triangular parabolic reflection would match the pitch and angle of the negative-space shadows cast backward into time by two of the other (largely) theoretical objects. Rose worked bit by bit, precisely adjusting, shifting and calibrating until the keening of the tones was pitched as high as possible while maintaining perfect harmony with the sundered and rearranged objects within the sphere. Down below Rose's feet, the newly calibrated and adjusted objects cast down a new reflective array from their many intersections. The sensory input from the array would not able to be interpreted literally by the dimensionally limited human brain, but Rose didn’t need the host to understand the process, merely survive it.

As it was busily and efficiently double-checking the varying levels within the sphere, a small figure crept quietly along the rope-and-plank bridge toward the top of the tower so quietly that Rose did not hear or even sense it.


	45. Lily under the strid

Lily opened her eyes, somehow not surprised to find herself back under the strid. It was different somehow. It was usually quiet even with the water rushing down from the strid into the world below, the still air broken only occasionally by echoic drips and drops, the gentle wet sounds of various undulating slimy growths, and the thick liquid surfacing of the rounded backs of the frog-fish men. This time the air, while still - was filled with a sound somewhat like wind – a steady strong whishing that she could sense but not feel on her skin. Instead of the sharp details and acute sensations from her previous trips here, everything around her now had a diffused dreamy quality. The glowing light seemed softer this time – even the sharp angles, corners and inverted curves of the buildings across the way from the tower seemed softened and blunted as if painted into reality by blobs from a thick wet brush. 

She wandered over to the large circle carved in the top of the tower, and to her surprise saw that it had changed – the carvings were deep and there seemed to be no evidence of the first version, nor of the various carved charms that had been there fitted into the shapes. The shapes carved into the circle on this version seemed to be vibrating at a high rate of speed, her eyes struggling to focus on the forms that refused to make sense in her brain. The spray of glyphs radiating through and outward from the circle were arranged differently as well, and were glowing as they were last time but in a color that looked to be a mix of blinding white, a hint of pink and black(?). Her mind struggled to understand the color, and as she walked around the circle the troubling thoughts faded quickly. She was trying to remember what was important about this circle. Her mind felt slow, and her thoughts were vague and untroubled. The lull of the sound around her was comforting and she drifted along the top of the tower looking around at nothing, her eyes unfocused and her mind emptying of any thoughts past those of warmth, comfort and rest. She fell deeper into her mind, until she was nestled way down deep in a dark place with no form or meaning. There was nothing but the sound of a low deep pulse in her mind: whahhhm, whahhhm, whahhhm, whahhhm, whahhhm…

**************

Someone was shaking her and she wasn’t ready to wake up yet. She had finally gotten her bunk at the ‘Rat nice and cozy and warm, and here was some ‘Rat newbie sent to wake her up and ruin it. The ‘newbies were always put on wakeup detail and hated it for a good reason. She grumpily tried to turn over and lay a smack up side the kid’s head, but her body felt strange – too big, too heavy to roll over. She opened her eyes, blinking and confused. She was on her back on the ground, and there was a young girl standing over her with her hands on her hips, tapping her foot impatiently. Lily sat up and looked around, realizing she was back under the strid on top of the tower. Wasn’t she just here? Had she left and come back? The fuzzy dreamlike state of the atmosphere had sharpened back into its various sharp angles and sensations from before. It was silent and still, the only sounds the ever-present rush of water and the hollow echo of drips and drops from dark hidden places.

Lily sat up and looked down at herself and then back up at the girl. “Took you long enough to wake up” the girl said shortly. Lily was confused – she was already dreaming; how would she have slept in a dream? Lily asked how long the girl had been standing there and the girl answered with a glum sigh “months”, as she flopped down into a cross-legged heap with her elbows on her knees, propping her small pointed chin in her hands. Lily was stunned… months? Dreams didn’t happen like that. She asked the girl what happened during this time. The girl tilted her head, and looked at her with a sideeye, “You got fat.” 

Lily was out of practice dealing with rude direct-speaking kids, and taken aback. She looked down at herself again, and yes… ok, she was bigger but she didn’t look fat, she just looked …

Lily leaned over to one side and vomited until she was croaking with dry heaves. No, no. She remembered now, and realization crashed through her brain. Her moon time, twice come and gone with no blood. The wolf-man, Mr. Merrock … _Daud_. This… thing… inside her. His child. _Their_ child. NO, no, no. no. She tried to vomit again, but was unable – her throat was swelling, but she continued to hitch around the raw soreness. She wobbled to her feet, her hands on her knees and she felt like she was going to faint. Her skin felt like it had been doused with soaking wet fire. She was burning hot from the inside out, and yet sweating profusely. Lily stayed bent over, trying to regulate her breathing like she was taught as a young ‘Rat to stave off panic or shock _three-count in through the nose, five-count out through the mouth_ as the sweat ran off of her in thick greasy beads and rivulets, soaking her clothes and dripping from the ends of her lank dirty hair. The girl was standing by her side, and put her hand on Lily’s back, clearly feeling awkward and unsure what to do. She tried to help steady Lily as much as she could, and convinced her to sit back down. Lily closed her eyes, breathing deeply in and slowly out until the panic passed, and her sweat first chilled and then dried on her skin. When Lily opened her eyes, her mind was clear and sharp, and she got her first good clear look at the girl. 

She couldn’t have been more than two years out from her first blood – age was measured in milestones in Lily’s kind of childhood, and from the looks of this girl it probably was the same for her too. She had a look of the streets about her, a fierce pride wrapped in poverty. Her skin was a golden color, almost caramel - and her pale green eyes tipped in a way that suggested that her origins were from somewhere other than Gristol. Her hair was a tangle of tight light brown curls shot through with rust and gold highlights. She looked like one of any number of other young people she had seen coming and going throughout Baleton from far-off places with a couple of glaringly obvious exceptions: the girl was here under the strid, and her slightly bulging eyes were a solid glossy black – similar to the eyes of the frog-fish men, but not exactly. It was unnerving at first, but Lily got used to it as she and the girl talked. They exchanged names, and after the usual ‘nice to meet you’ bullshit, it was clear that it was time for some serious conversation. The girl began to explain that she was here to help Lily, but then stopped for a moment, looking away from Lily – appearing to rethink her story.

**Deidre’s Story**

Look, I’ll be straight with you – I’m only here because of Billie. No, you don’t know her, not yet anyway – she and I go way back, way before your time. I know, I look like a kid but that’s only because I died as one. Yes, died. I’m dead. Yeah, go ahead if you want – I probably just feel like a regular person. Yeah? I figured as much. I guess here in the Void we just seem like regular people. I don’t think I can appear like this outside of here, though let me tell you – I’ve tried.

Huh? What was it like? It was like dying! What do you think it was like?! You’re here too, aren't you? Wait, what? This isn’t a dream, Lily – you’re in the _Void_. Yes, THE Void. So, you aren’t dead? Ah, ok. Well honestly, in that case there isn’t anything that I can tell you that would really make sense to you, but ok – I remember my last day very clearly. We were living together on the streets of Dunwall taking care of each other as best we could. We’d steal together, run together, love together, and it seemed like it would last forever. I had been with Billie all day that day. Sometimes we'd split up and take different parts of the districts and meet up later to share what we found, but that day - that day, we spent together. That day was overcast, and it was cold and we were walking together through Rudshore, cutting through the Financial District and heading over toward the Hounds Pits. We did this a lot. We’d pick pockets along the way from the richest to the seediest, from bankers and gamblers alike. Both were always loaded, and we’d always make a pretty good take if we took our time at it. 

That day, we were giggling about something and walking arm in arm – looking only at each other. Neither of us saw those boys getting out of a carriage right in front of us on the sidewalk. They weren’t much older than we were. There was a mean looking fat one, and a thinner one who looked second-hand mean – what? Oh, that’s the kind of mean where their punch has another person’s weight behind it, if you get my meaning. They bumped right into us, and that’s when the trouble started. It happened so fast. The fat one kept egging on the skinny one to do something about us bumping into them. He called us roaches, wharf roaches, trying to get him to say something to us. The skinny one looked angry enough, but he didn’t say anything to me or to Billie. When the fat one asked the skinny one if he was some kind of cockless gal-boy, the skinny one picked up a good-sized knobbed branch off the ground, cracked the thinnest part off at his knee, and swung the heavy end right at my head. I felt it hit me, and I think I felt pain and then I felt nothing. No, it isn’t like that – I didn’t see myself dying or anything like that nor was I a ghost. There was just nothing. The next thing I remember is opening my eyes expecting to see Billie standing over me in the street, and seeing the Outsider instead. Huh? Yes, _that_ Outsider. He said that my story wasn’t over, and was going to send me to see Billie. What? No, not like that exactly. I get to go into her dreams. That’s the only way I can see her or talk to her, but the Outsider said that he was working on a way for me to be able to _really_ talk to her. It is so hard though. Much harder than I thought it would be. When I saw Billie in her dream, I thought she was going to be the same as she was yesterday - or what yesterday was for me, anyway. So much time went by. I have a lot of catching up to do with Billie, but there are some things I need to do first though. One of them was to come here and wait for you. The Outsider can’t come here, not to this place. Nah, I'm not sure why, he just said he couldn't. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it is the same Void even though it looks different. This place looks really different from where I was though. Feels different. Everything here looks blue and green and everything there is purple and black. No, I'm sorry - I wish I _did_ know what I'm supposed to be doing down here.

**************

Both girls sat quietly for a moment, out of things to say. There was something that Deidre had said that was nagging in the back of Lily's mind, and she made a mental note to ask her about it later. Right now her mind was firmly on a few other things. Lily stood, brushing the grit off of her backside. She felt more stable now - physically, anyway. If what Deidre had said about this not being a dream was true, then there must be a way out and Lily was determined to find it. She offered her hand to Deidre, who took it and pulled herself up to stand beside Lily. Lily walked the perimeter looking for a way down, while Deidre made her way toward the circle. She was certain there had been stairs leading up here but no matter where she walked on the top of the tower, the direction she took somehow bent without actually changing, and she ended up in an entirely different area at a distance that made no spatial sense. Lily decided to walk the perimeter of the top of the tower with her hand trailing lightly on the raised edges to keep her bearings. After walking for what seemed like an impossibly long time, her hand banged against something that wasn’t there and then suddenly _was_ there: one of the two small stone pillars that she had hid behind when she watched … Lily pushed it out of her mind immediately. Oh, she would think about it plenty when she got out of here but for now she needed to stay focused.

Wait, hadn't there been a bridge here? She peered out into the darkness, and watched as something materialized out of the dark, something unrolling and coming toward them. The rope and plank bridge! Lily gestured over to Deidre, who had been standing near the circle and Deidre joined her at the edge of the tower. Lily gave a small grim nod to Deidre and then turned and began to walk carefully onto the bridge. She made her way slowly, testing each plank before settling her weight fully on it. She was a few feet out, and turned to give Deidre the go ahead to follow. Deidre was standing at the edge, but didn’t make any move to join Lily on the bridge. Lily gestured more firmly.. c’mon!! Deidre stepped back, and to Lily’s horror the bridge began rolling itself back again from the tower. It creaked and crackled, sounding very much like what she imagined bones sounded like rubbing together. She looked ahead into the darkness and the bridge seemed to just _end_ abruptly a short distance ahead. How was it staying up?! Her choices were limited. She could allow herself to be mangled in this rolling contraption, or she could take her chances and jump. She hurried ahead to where the bridge ended and turned to look back at Deidre. Lily took a deep breath _three-count in the nose, five-count out the mouth…_ and allowed herself to simply fall backward. The last thing she saw were Deidre’s impossibly black eyes, and then there was nothing.


	46. The Whalers 1855: Red Sky At Morning...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The darkness drops again but now I know  
> That twenty centuries of stony sleep  
> Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,  
> And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,  
> Slouches towards Baleton to be born?
> 
>  
> 
> _\--with apologies to W.B. Yeats_  
> 

The Mackinnon put into port at Baleton not more than a half-hour past its expected time. Thomas was impatient, not wanting to wait for the process of disembarking. Though the ship’s captain wasn’t taking more than the usual time to do so, it seemed to Thomas that each group called for disembarking walked with an obstinate leisure. He was itching from the inside out, anxious to meet with Mr. Merrock – hoping that none of the other network had gotten information there ahead of him. He was certain that the news would reach Dunwall within the week, and he was particularly keen that he stay ahead of whomever might pick up on the tip and come sniffing around. He was fairly certain Corvo Attano would be among the first to come, and he certainly did not want to be in his way when he did. It was critical that he find Daud as soon as possible, and a long-timer like Mr. Merrock might just have a good idea where someone like Daud would hide in a town like this. He nearly broke into a sweat when his group was called up next to disembark. As much as he wanted to find Daud, he was not sure what to expect given the nature of his call to Thomas. As he was politely nodding and making his way toward the gangway, he was fighting off the urge to elbow this chattering tourist hen or that out of his way. He kept his wits about him, even as various far-reaching feathers from ridiculous hats tickled his nose and face, and held his behavior as befitting his title: Thomas Kerrigan, Esq. Well, sort of. 

To be fair, he was more of a clerk than a solicitor, but in his _unofficial_ line of work it paid to stay out of the eye of even a hint of suspicion. He had access to a vast network of information through his connections to the legal system throughout Gristol, and as a clerk he could quietly access it without raising so much as an eyebrow. Money was rarely an object for Thomas. The buying and selling of information was a lucrative business, so he made no further moves higher past his position as clerk. Didn't need to. In his official position, he was just anonymous _enough_. There was no one alive outside of Daud, and perhaps Billie Lurk – if she was still alive, that is, that knew his given last name and he had long stopped worrying about getting caught. Besides, he wasn’t so sure that a high profile position like a full Solicitor was in his best interests. Or so he told himself. 

Finally, the group made it down the gangway and out onto the docks. The cackling hens in their big hats went along their way, and Thomas set on about his. It was very early, the sun barely up in the sky. He stood on the docks admiring the fire of the morning sky and figured he had better find a place to stay before the storms set in. He checked his pocket watch, and figured it was probably too early to check in on Mr. Merrock so he made his way into town looking into this window and that. He had been to Baleton only once before, not long after he left Dunwall. It was unremarkable then, but over the years had picked up a certain charm and certainly a bit more industry. He considered booking a cottage on the High Tider islands, but thought better of it when he thought about what Daud’s comment on _that_ was likely to be.

He passed by a bakery and a clothing store and up ahead saw the hanging sign for Stridside Curious Goods. As he suspected, the store was closed and dark, the shutters pulled. He stood for a moment looking at his reflection in the glass of the front door. He felt overdressed suddenly, and slightly embarrassed. He didn’t look much different than the aristocrats that he and Daud had together culled for years in Dunwall. He sighed and made his way further down, hoping for an open establishment where he could have a seat and a cup of piping hot coffee, and a cigarette. Lots of cigarettes. He remembered that there was a sort of pub that operated a whorehouse up in the top floor and wondered if it was still here. He could do without the whores at the moment, but he did seem to recall having a decent meal there. He wandered on up the street, and there was the ‘Flask. Ah, yes. He remembered now. The Olde Philosophers Flask. A curious name for a dive, but good food was good food and his somewhat ample stomach was telling him it was time to eat.

****

**********

****

****  


Billie Lurk sat up in bed, lost for a moment until she got her bearings and remembered where she was. It was early – the sun was barely over the horizon, and the gray light of the room was slowly going pink, and then nearly red. A red sky at morning. Perfect way to wake up after a red sky at night, she supposed. Billie looked out the window, deep in thought barely noticing the portly gentleman approaching the ‘Flask. Early-birds were a strange ‘folk to Billie. She rarely woke before the sun was at least a good quarter-high in the sky, sometimes later. Such was one of the luxuries of living a life only for oneself. She stood, wearing the same clothes from last night, and pulled on her boots. She hadn’t given any thought to her appearance in a long time, no need to start now. She gathered a few things in her small bag that she wore slung over her shoulder under her big coat. Getting her stump strapped back up was always a little tricky, but she managed as usual. She wasn’t particularly hungry but decided to head downstairs and get a cup of coffee and hope to scare up at least somewhat of an appetite. If nothing else, perhaps she would stop in and see if Anne Bonny’s bakery was open today and get a couple of those hot-pops. Nan was in her usual spot, brewing up coffee in the big biggan. Billie pulled up to the bar, and looked down. She wasn’t in the mood for chatting. Nan was an expert at picking up on when people wanted to be left alone, and did so with Billie. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the early-bird gentleman sitting at a table not far from the bar. She could tell he was glancing her way, and silently willed him to leave her the hell alone. She sighed deeply when she saw him stub out his cigarette, and lay his broadside down on the table. He stood and approached the bar hesitantly. Billie knew what he was going say, or some version of it. It was the arm, or the eye. Always. He got to within a half a foot, and Billie looked up and spat “Fuck off”, the last ‘f’ stopping short when she caught eyes with him. He was older and fatter, but it was Thomas. _Well I’ll be damned._

Nan pointedly asked ‘Trouble, Megan?’ while glaring at Thomas, and Billie just shook her head no.

Thomas hadn’t been sure when he first saw her, but as soon as she had looked down at the bar, her face going sullen and sour he immediately recognized Billie Lurk. She would get the very same look when Daud would dress her down in front of the other Whalers. He was hard on her, but he had to be – she was supposed to be his second. Thomas glanced at Nan and then back at Billie. “Megan?!” he said, his voice just the tiniest bit too jocular, “Is that you? How long has it been? Come, share my table – we’ll do some catching up.” He gestured for two coffees to be brought to his table, and then the two of them sat down, neither sure what to say to the other. Each knew better than to bullshit the other, and small talk was out of the question. They both knew perfectly well why the other was here. 

At the table, Thomas bent forward smiling for anyone who might be watching – his voice as low and calm and deadly as ever and said “You’re going to be very lucky if he doesn’t tear your fucking head off your shoulders where you stand. How dare you show your face here.” Billie’s jaw was set, and her expression deadly neutral. She wasn’t afraid of Thomas, never was – but he had a point. Daud had forgiven her, but he ordered her to leave his sight. That meant forever. She wasn’t about to let Thomas get to her though. She just stared him down without saying a word. He sat back, his friendly smile frozen in place hiding every bit of malice except the glint in his eyes. “I can only assume you got called, too, am I correct?” Billie nodded slowly, and Thomas let out a deep sigh. He knew that if Daud had called her like he called him, then he must be in some serious trouble to let that particular bygone be a bygone. Now that they had found each other, it was clear that neither was going to let the other out of their sight. It was probably for the best. Perhaps it was meant to be that way. For a man that hated mysteries, Daud could sometimes be a master of them when giving orders. For now, Billie and Thomas agreed to disagree on a number of things, and then spent the next hour or so deep in conversation comparing notes and deciding what their next move would be. It was agreed upon that their next stop would be the Stridside Curious Goods shop. Thomas had business there with the proprietor, Mr. Hearne Merrock, and explained that if anyone in Baleton might have an idea where Daud would be hiding, it would be him. They stood, paid their tabs with Nan and then headed out into the morning.


	47. Busy day at Stridside Curious Goods

_He was far up above Dunwall, in a part of town that he wouldn’t normally be doing a job in but money was money, and killing was his life. Billie was somewhere far up ahead, scouting and gathering supplies that might be needed. Daud was disoriented – there wasn’t a single inch of Dunwall from the bottom to the top with which he didn’t have at least some familiarity, but this part of Dunwall looked strange to him. He should know the way, and yet he didn’t. He thought he knew where he was - he had transversed to a windowsill and crawled into the window of a familiar place, and crawled out the window on the other side to find a Dunwall that he didn’t recognize. Perhaps there had been some construction? Going back through the other window was no help – looking out, he was perplexed to see that there was no possible ledge or other origin point where he could have transversed from to get to that window. Daud shook his head, clearing it and then taking another drought of the spiritual solution. No matter, he had a job to do and his target was just up ahead. He blinked up to the roof of the next building, the ledge just within reach. He made his way to the far edge of the roof and looked down. There was his target, just as the client had promised. The alley was dark, and Daud first considered a drop-kill, but decided he needed to flush out anyone else that might be in there before spilling any blood. Collateral damage wasn’t unusual, but it tended to lower the pay – significantly in some cases. He looked around for Billie, gesturing, but she was out of range. Daud summoned an Assassin in the alley below. This was not his preferred method of flushing civilians from targets since summons tended to kill indiscriminately, but an assassin-shaped phantom of the void was better than nothing. Summoned Assassins tended to eat through the solution at a good clip, but they were useful in a pinch. The Assassin coalesced instantly from a swirl of black Void detritus, and ran into the alley. Then, nothing. No fight, no people running out of the alley. Strange. Daud decided to blink down there to take a look himself._

_The alley was dark – Daud had thought perhaps it was the angle of the buildings that had made it so, but from the bottom looking up he could clearly see where the weak sunlight abruptly ended about twenty lengths or so off the ground. He crept deeper in, his eyes adjusting to the dark and took cover behind a big empty bin and leaned out to see what he could. The Assassin was nowhere to be found, but his target was there, crouched over something and Daud could hear wet crunching sounds. He peered a little closer from his hiding place, and could just make out a head and legs stretched out in pool of blood on the ground on either side of the man’s crouched figure. The man – well, boy really – he looked pretty young, was busily rummaging through the man’s guts it looked like, his pointy elbows jutting out of his rolled up sleeves, churning up and down rapidly. Daud had not seen anything like this before - not in the Isles, anyway, and his lip curled in involuntary disgust. He readied his wristbow, reaching in his pouch for his sleep darts but found none. He quickly patted down his other pouches and pockets. His bonecharms were there, but where the fuck was his other stuff? He reached for his blade – shit! What was happening? Where was Billie? He was going to need some help to draw this.. thing's… attention away from him. He had but a few drops of solution left, and knew it would cut his ability-well down considerably but summoned another Assassin. The Assassin simply stood where it was summoned, making a noise like nothing Daud had ever heard – or.. wait, he **had** heard it before. It was the sound of a rune singing, only this was what he imagined a room full of them would sound like – or a building full. **Stop** , Daud hissed at the Assassin trying to keep his voice low. The boy at the end of the alley (eating?!!) his victim had clearly not heard him to begin with over his slurping and crunching, but Daud did not want the boy to turn around. He suddenly found himself desperate not to have to see the boy’s face. He looked down the other way of the alley, planning to simply abort the job but there was no exit. What had been an open alley was now a narrow brick hole between buildings – much narrower than he had thought, and much darker - and there was not a damned thing to transverse to, even the windows of the buildings had disappeared. **Stop it, damnit** , he ordered, struggling to keep his voice a whisper – but the Assassin didn’t listen. In a rage, Daud reached up and grabbed the mask by the rebreather and yanked it roughly off. It was Lily. The mask had torn the fittings from the bun in her hair, and it hung unravelled in tangled chunks around her face. Her skin was mottled and gray and she looked, and smelled, to have been dead for a while. Her eyes were cloudy and filmed over, but her mouth was open, and the sound was coming from it over her dried cracked tongue – or seemed to be. The sound was suddenly all around him now twisting and looping from a chime to a rolling growled trill - something like horrifically-slowed and warped notes of an Overseer's Music Box. The singing was pressing in on him, squeezing his brain, the air began to fill first with shimmers and then the shimmers began to take form into something… and then the boy stood and turned around to face Daud._

Daud woke with his scream a gasp on his lips, his heart jumping and flopping painfully in his chest. He lay there, blinking at the ceiling, trying to calm his breathing. His heart slowed some, and he sat up – the rune-song still ringing in his ear. He stood and stretched, and walked to the window looking out over Baleton and opened it wide to let in enough cold to hopefully drive out the fog still sitting in his mind from his nightmare. There was a red sky this morning, and Daud always did enjoy watching the morning open with a bloody show. He closed his eyes, willing his mind to clear. When he opened them, he remembered that today was a Mackinnon day – and without fail when the Mackinnon put into port his shop would first fill with tourists, and throughout the day bring a steady stream of treasure-hunters, bargin-bin divers, and a handful of aficionados bringing quality items and looking for some serious quality items in trade. Tourists invariably attract ‘Rats, so he could look forward to a barrage of little pickpockets and thieves slinking around their ankles throughout the day. Occasionally, the Mackinnon would bring quiet, efficient couriers bearing pertinent dispatches for Daud’s _other_ business. He wondered what would wash up onto Baleton’s streets from this boatload? He went about his morning routine, trying to ignore the faint ringing in his ears.

He walked into the kitchen looking for his lunch, forgetting for the briefest moment that Lily was gone. He knew on some fundamental level that she had not left Baleton, much less was she dead. He had a vague idea of where she may have gone, and if he was correct in that idea she would be safe for a little while. In the meantime, he would try to think of a way that he could get through to her.

When he got to the shop, he was surprised to see that there was no one waiting to get in. Sure -it was early, not quite 8 a.m., but if the Mackinnon was running on time – it would have ported not more than an hour ago, and the tourists were usually milling about around his door by now. Perhaps they all piled in over at Anne’s bakery. Her bakery had become a destination spot over the years. She could come up with items no other bakery had put thought to - and damned if they weren't all amazing. If his gut weren’t so tied up in knots he’d go over himself, but he figured it would be best to go ahead and open a little earlier than usual today. He opened the shop door, and then set the little sign contraption affixed to it to indicate the shop would open in no more than an hour.

The first thing he did after locking the door back up was to unlock the door behind the register area and head down into the basement, fully expecting that Lily had managed to get down there somehow – she was, and he knew well that some little part of her would always be, a ‘Rat. He couldn’t think of any other way she would have found out who he really was, though to be fair – at this point, Hearne Merrock had firmly become part of who he really was. It was evident upon unlocking the door that Lily hadn’t been down here. Even if she had made a dupe of his key, there was a very particular catch within the lock that had been trained there by so many years of using the same key – so very subtle and delicate, but unique, as were all locks for someone at Daud’s skill level. Had a dupe been used, that catch – whether it be an errant filing or a flaw in the inner works, would have been affected if not snapped off. No, the catch was as it had always been. Still, he went down to check and found nothing out of place. When he went upstairs to check his office he found the same. No sign of Lily sneaking around. In a small way, he found himself disappointed. He knew that before long, he would find out how she knew - and when he did, he had some novel, and very violent, ideas of how he was going to deal with whomever had gotten to her.

He looked out of the office window and saw a few people milling around, and went straight to balancing the perfectly-balanced till, preparing the transaction log, and making sure he had enough calling cards. He made note that before long, he would need to put in another order for letterhead, envelopes and calling cards at the Common School Printworks. The routine of opening the shop soon took precedence over his other troubling thoughts, and he was able to open his store a good fifteen minutes ahead of time, much to the delight of the line of people who had formed under his awning.


	48. Unexpected customers at Stridside Curious Goods

Billie couldn’t understand why people would wait in line at a ‘curious goods’ store. In her mind, ‘curious goods’ was code for ‘old junk’ – but evidently there were plenty of people interested in whatever curious goods Stridside had to offer. Much to Billie’s dismay, a line had formed in front of the shop by the time she and Thomas got there, filing into the shop which had opened a few minutes earlier than they had expected. Billie was antsy to look for Daud and didn’t feel much like wasting time talking to some old codger running a junk shop. Thomas had been vague when she asked him why he thought this Hearne Merrock would know anything specific about Daud, much less where to find him. She could read his face and see that he was leaving some key information out, but didn’t question him further. He had said that the man was interested in procuring whatever memorabilia he could of Daud, and the amount of coin he had invested in that venture suggested that he was serious about finding him. Billie was hardly convinced. She had spent years looking for him with no luck – and she had a _bond_ with Daud, a bond that she could still feel even if it was just a whisper in her blood. What did this shopkeeper have? She merely huffed, and tried to keep from rolling her eye too conspicuously. Thomas kept his arms crossed tightly across his chest, the soft rise of his belly almost, but not quite providing a shelf for them to rest on. He kept patting his pocket absently, as if checking for something, and was clearly nervous and impatient. He had already explained that he had never met the man, and that his nerves came primarily from that. Billie wasn’t quite buying that. 

They finally made it into the shop, and the jam at the doorway opened up into a clean spacious sales floor. The wood floor, while worn, carried a clean warm glow and a hint of lemon oil. Thomas groaned audibly at the sight of two well-rounded ladies at the front counter – their huge ridiculously feathered hats blocking sight of not only the register, but the proprietor and a good two feet on either side of him. They were chattering and chattering about something with no sign of stopping, and Thomas just shook his head and started looking around to kill time and try to tamp down his growing anxiety. Billie did the same. This place wasn’t at all what she had expected. The shelving units lining the wall were an eclectic collection of various carpentry styles and designs – many of them nearly reaching the ceiling. They were stained in varieties of rich deep browns and vibrant cherry – clean and gleaming through their many nicks and scuffs. Something told Billie that if she were to look at the very tops of these cabinets, she would find no settling of dust more recent than an hour or so. Several of the cabinets had ornate leaded glass doors which closed on scatterings of mismatched knick-knacks. Slightly tarnished snuffers shared space with intricate whalebone combs, elegantly etched plates aside old wooden animal fetish carvings and so on. There were books, and clothes – mostly vintage stuff that one wouldn’t be likely to find in the clothing shop a few doors down. The mannequins in the 'Tog were dressed in stunning finery, sleek and modern designs alongside displays of practical working clothes. No, this shop definitely had something different in regards to clothes: old military style jackets from other places in the Isles that vaguely resembled Watch uniforms, an array of old hats ranging from chic to tatty, and various pieces of men’s and ladies’ clothing long orphaned from whatever sets they had been designed for.

She continued to look around, finding herself surprisingly interested in the displays of jewelry and various Pandyssian artifacts – strangely shaped small pots and containers daubed with rough blotches of color, their design revealing exactly nothing about their use or application. She was flipping through a bin of old audiographs when Thomas finally came to her side, softly laying a hand on her left elbow – signaling her that the hens were finally starting to slow down their cackling. He was afraid if they didn’t jump on the opportunity, they would end up having to wait longer behind even more chatty customers. Unfortunately, when he and Billie turned to walk to the counter the proprietor had left his spot behind the counter and stood with his back to them talking to a well-heeled elaborately-whisker’d gentleman in a tall hat who was expressing a great deal of interest in a packet of maps and documents, and gleefully haggling for a better price. They tried to look as inconspicuous as possible, giving the client his privacy while obviously waiting a turn to speak to Mr. Merrock. Merrock spoke little, and low enough not to hear, but the client spoke a lot and loudly. Billie had known plenty of people just like this who enjoyed loudly projecting their sense of self-importance for all who ultimately didn’t care to hear it. Finally there was a handshake, and the proprietor turned to gesture the client to the register. Thomas and Billie made their way behind the client and stood in line, giving ample room as to not crowd the gentleman or appear to be listening to what had suddenly become a very quiet and relatively private conversation. When the coins clinked the counter, the bullshit tended to stop – or such as it usually was in Billie’s experience. When the gentleman in the tall hat walked from the counter, clearly satisfied with his purchase, Daud stood glaring at them from behind the register, his stormy expression silently saying everything to them that he didn’t dare speak aloud in public.


	49. A Brief Reunion

Billie stood in shocked silence as she stared at Daud. This made no sense. She was expecting to find him nearly dead from torture, or kidnapped and tied to a chair, or shit – even finding him dangling with his naked arse flapping in the wind from the mainmast rigging of a haunted pirate ship would have been more believable than finding him running a shop like a common merchant. Billie had no issue with merchants, nor did she find the profession any less admirable than any other – but _Daud?_ This was a man who had spilled more blood in a number of years than armies had done in decades – a man whose very name would still to this day send fear into the hearts of even the most hardened of thugs. He was a legend, a black magic assassin with no less than the power of the Outsider himself, and where does she find him? Running a ‘curious goods’ shop? Billie stepped back and let Thomas take the lead.

“Mr. Merrock, I do apologize for the surprise visit.” Thomas strode forward and took Daud’s hand, shaking it over the counter. “My associate, Megan..”

“Foster. Yes, Ms. Foster, I’ve heard much about you,” said Daud as he took Billie’s hand as well, shaking it with perhaps a bit more force than necessary. “I understand you sold your ship, Ms. Foster. A shame to say farewell to it, I’m sure.”

Billie just nodded, unsure of what to say. She played the part, though and Thomas continued to play his.

“Mr. Merrock, Hearne if I may – I apologize for not making an appointment. I came straight to Baleton to share an interesting acquisition that I would like to discuss, one that cannot wait much longer.”

“Shop closes at six. Come back then, and we’ll talk.” Daud turned, and went about the business of running his shop clearly finished with the conversation. Billie tried to catch Daud’s eye, but he was already turning to greet another customer.

Billie and Thomas looked at each other, both at a loss for words and left the shop. They walked aimlessly for a while, neither speaking – both lost in their own racing thoughts. Thomas suggested a drink, and Billie found that to be just what she needed. They headed back to the ‘Flask. Billie smiled to see Lib Fury at the door, in the same spot she had come accustomed to seeing her on her trips to Baleton. Lib nodded silently at her, and Billie returned the nod. Thankfully, Lib was a woman of few words, as right now Billie had precious few to give herself.

They went into the bar and ordered a couple of especially stiff drinks. Nan’s eyebrow twitched slightly at the request this early in the morning, but set up the drinks nonetheless. Orbon, doubles for both with requests to keep them coming.

Billie and Thomas sat in the corner table around from the bar, welcoming the darkness and relative privacy. Billie lit a cigarette and the two of them settled into their chairs, neither wanting to start the conversation. Billie finally spoke first, asking Thomas what his first impression of Daud was. There was something she couldn’t put her finger on that was bothering her about him outside of the obvious – the beard did well to hide much of his scar, but it wasn’t the beard. Thomas thought for a second and said “I thought he’d look older.” Yes, that was it. Even with the streaks of white in his hair and beard, he really didn’t look much older than the last time she saw him.

She shivered remembering what it was like to kneel at his feet, offering her sword to him. She hadn’t been sure what he would do, but she would have been satisfied with either choice. She would have gladly died at his hand for what she had done. Damned Delilah and her scheming. She shook her head, regret echoing up through the years to tear at her heart yet again. It was almost worse to be sent away from him. He was her compass, her guide – she cared for him. Many nights she had spent hiding away in her own thoughts late at night in her bunk, sometimes finding her mind wandering to a time where their eyes may have met for a second too long, or other times where he had put a protective hand on her back after a good fight – some things she thought about him were deeply taboo, and left her conflicted. She wasn’t sure what it was that she desired about him, why she had needed to find him. It wasn’t as simple as sex and affection – that was cheap and easy enough to find. It was something beyond that, something _more_ \- not love exactly. Only Deidre had held that place in her heart, the ghost of her holding fast in that place still. Perhaps it was a matter of simple respect and caring that she had never known otherwise. Whatever it was, she saw nothing of it in Daud’s eyes this morning. His eyes were cold and strange to her now. She hoped that when they met later in the evening, the icy shock would wear off and they could talk again at least somewhat like they used to. She wasn’t surprised that he knew her as Meagan Foster. She wondered if he had in fact seen her on her trips through Baleton, and she felt an empty sadness thinking that he _knew_ and still kept her far from his life. He had told her to leave his sight, and while she knew this to be a literal irreversible command she still had held hope that he would be happy, or something like it – to see her again.

Thomas drank silently, his thoughts on a similar track. He had tried to keep the Whalers together as best he could but without Daud they were just common murderers in costumes and masks. Time passed, and the Whalers finally passed out of fashion, it seemed. He remembered the day he left the Whalers. He hadn’t told anyone he was leaving. He just left, and didn’t look back. He had heard that there was someone who had tried to revive them a couple of years back along with the girl Fleet, but that was short-lived indeed. There was some mystery surrounding the whole incident, and reports were wildly varied as to what happened. Fleet disappeared and was presumed dead. The Tyvian, also missing and presumed dead. He had a feeling that the whole thing was probably just any number of bonecharm tricks pulled out of a bag, but again – without Daud, there really wasn’t a chance, bonecharms or not. Now, though - with Daud in Baleton, would there be a chance in reuniting on some level? He had spent years in correspondence with Hearne Merrock and not once had he considered it might be the Knife. Thomas was not interested in fighting anymore, and he could see that Daud probably wasn’t either. Maybe the Whalers could take on a new direction? He thought for a moment about how to go forward from here. There was nothing that was going to stop the news of Daud being found from reaching Dunwall. Once it did, there would be a shitstorm of who-knows-what showing up to claim the price on his head, or to exact a personal price from years ago. Would they make the connection to Hearne Merrock? He was sure people of a certain age from those days would. He shuddered inside thinking of running into Corvo Attano in the street. Corvo wouldn’t know Thomas from any other man on the street, but Thomas would know _him_. He doubted that the years had mellowed Corvo on the loss of his Jessamine. He never understood why Corvo hadn’t killed Daud when he had the chance, but figured if he found him now he wouldn’t hesitate.

Thomas and Billie slowly warmed up to each other as the drinking commenced. Soon they were sharing old stories, bringing up old remembrances and Thomas filled her in on what happened after she left the Whalers. Billie listened with great interest. She had managed to find most of the places Daud had been in his last days and hours in Dunwall, and had tracked down a few of the people he had dealings with but nothing led to finding him. She had spent some hours drinking with an older and wiser Lizzy Stride, now retired and happily making her way around greater Karnaca with a peg-leg – as fierce as ever, her teeth still razor sharp in her softening face. Lizzy hadn’t much to offer by way of information, but she was entertaining and that had made it worth the trip to find her. Billie didn't offer up much about what she had been up to over the years, and didn't mention the coup in 1852 at all. She would in time, but right now her mind was firmly on a time long before that. Thomas briefly outlined his life after the Whalers, and true to his word it was bone dry and boring. He told her about his years of correspondence with Hearne Merrock, and they both had a bitter chuckle at how close they had been without ever knowing it. Thomas was not concerned with Daud’s coldness. He had rarely known otherwise. After Billie left, whatever soft spots Daud may have had hidden in his heart rotted away and were firmly plugged with ice. All business after that, and Daud had become increasingly private and cryptic. One day, he was simply gone.

After some time talking, and then working their way through a full Baleton breakfast: thick slices of dry cured meat, delicately fried cakes of meal and seaweed, and eggs, they decided to make their way around Baleton to see what it had to offer underneath the genteel tourist trade. Billie wanted to see if she could take a peek into Anne Bonny's back market room, and Thomas was interested in heading to the port to see if he could pick up any chatter that might be going on yet about Daud. Thomas burped heartily, pushing his plate away and then went to arrange a room, unsuccessfully. Thanks to Billie though, Ms. Abernathy was amenable to have an spare bed moved into Lottie’s old room to give Thomas a place to sleep and store his meager belongings. After a few moments of letting the breakfast settle into the large amount of rum they had both poured into themselves, they took off into the midmorning together.

As they were walking down toward the port, Billie paused for a moment to look into the window of Daud’s shop. Yes, he did look much younger than she would have expected. She didn’t stop for long though, not wanting to be on the receiving end of another glare. They made their way to Anne Bonny’s bakery. Anne was working the counter, and as always was glad to see Meagan. Anne came round the counter to give Billie a hearty handshake and pull her into a quick hug. Anne shook Thomas’s hand cordially, and then gestured for her oldest boy to come let them in the ‘storeroom’. Billie was always impressed with the items Anne managed to procure for her shop. She had an array of springtraps, several bolts and darts, variously-charged mines – the usual array of items. Billie didn’t intend to buy any of the items, but she found it oddly comforting to simply look at them. Anne’s boy Jack was more than happy to show Billie some special items that were not on display – a collection of various styles and sizes of pistols, an old crossbow or two, and a couple of cases of different variants of grenades carefully stored and packed neatly in safety containers. After looking for a bit, she did find a trinket that caught her eye – a small springloaded double bladed dagger, well oiled - and the handle belly fit perfectly in her hand. She never could resist a good deal, or a sharp blade.

As Billie and Thomas made their way down to the docks, Billie was scoping out the surroundings casually – she had felt that they were being followed ever since they left Anne's, and took time to meander – stopping here to light a cigarette, or there to pause to look at trinkets on offer at various merchant pop-up stands. Thomas was clearly annoyed, but she gave him a look and a small nod that he recognized instantly after all of these years. Thomas may have rounded out some, but his instincts were still sharp. He was a bit drunk still, as was Billie – but once he slowed his breathing and stopped to focus he too was able to sense that they were being followed. They continued down to the docks, and once out in the more open area Billie was able to spot one, two – maybe as many as four young kids who gave themselves away by trying a little too hard to look inconspicuous. Thomas was peering out over the water looking at the ships in port while watching peripherally and Billie looked here and there – appearing to be taking it all in, but pinpointing each and every pair of eyes that were on them.

The kids were halfway decent at what they were doing. Any casual observer wouldn’t have noticed, but even old Whalers like herself and Thomas could pick up on it pretty easily if they were looking for it. There was a rough girl standing with her back to the wall of the utility shed. Nearly directly across the way from her on the other side of the docks was a young man lighting a cigarette looking off to one side. There was another younger girl standing at the edge of the dock where it met the cobbled road, and the last one looked to be an older fellow – a clean-cut young man perhaps in his twenties, standing with his back to them, his hands deep in the pockets of his longshoreman jacket, watching the water from the far end of the dock. Something in his stance and movements suggested signals, and Billie wasn’t wrong about that. When he moved a certain way to pull his cap down, one of the kids would move in from one angle or other. Billie and Thomas were mildly amused. No doubt these kids – the infamous Baleton Wharfe Rats, as Billie explained to Thomas, could be dangerous but not particularly if they were spotted first.

Billie nudged Thomas, and they decided to head this off at the top. As they were walking toward the young man on the dock, one of the kids decided to make a move. The rough girl was behind Thomas in a flash, accidentally ‘bumping’ into him hard while dipping a hand into coat pocket - the same pocket that he had been absently patting to make sure whatever was in there was secure. Thomas turned in a flash, his reflexes surprising even himself. He cuffed the girl roughly on the side of her head, and she staggered back empty handed. The other kids moved in quickly, and one of them made toward Billie, and Billie let him. The boy got to within a few inches of her and she yanked her stump back, catching him squarely in the nose with one of the buckles on her leather guard. The boy squawked loudly enough for the young man on the end of the pier to hear, and he turned and walked over quickly. He walked up to Billie and Thomas, and Billie leaned in close to him and triggered the blade. The young man stopped and looked down, the point of the blade aimed directly between the open lapels of his coat. Time seemed to slow for them all. The young man stepped slowly back, hands up slightly and signaled the kids – who scattered, running and dipping through the crowd quickly losing themselves in the steady stream of roughnecks, tourists, sailors and fishermen who wandered the docks.

Billie flipped the mechanism to retract the blade and stepped back to get a good look at the young man. Thomas was checking his pocket _again_ , and Billie couldn’t help but to wonder what was so damned important in there. Thomas reached for the young man, who initially jumped back but with a puzzled look took Thomas’s hand as it was clear that he was reaching for no more than a handshake. “Thomas Kerrigan” and the boy hesitated and said “Cholly. Cholly Shanks.” 

Billie introduced herself as well, as Meagan Foster and Cholly’s face lit up. “Meagan?! I’m so sorry, I didn’t recognize you… it’s been .. um..” Cholly’s face reddened as he tried not to look at Billie’s empty eye socket or what was left of her missing arm. Billie didn’t know who Cholly was, but he would have been considerably younger before she lost her arm. She simply shook his hand with a nod, and said “What’s left of me anyway.” Cholly was clearly embarrassed and apologized to them both. He explained that yes, he was not much more than a kid the last time he had seen Meagan and that he used to spend a bit of time at the ‘Flask as a kid and had seen her there from time to time. He asked her about the ‘Wale - he had been fascinated with 'Captain Foster' as a boy - and then their conversation settled into a comfortable rhythm. He told her that he was running the ‘Rats now, and gave a brief recap of what had happened with H.H. and a little boy named Daf. Thomas’s ears perked up at H.H.’s name and he was genuinely surprised to hear about what he had done – and even more surprised to hear that he had abandoned his ‘Rats, evidently along with everything that Thomas was sure was stashed away somewhere down in the ‘Rat hole. Though he had feigned ignorance to Billie, Thomas knew very well who the ‘Rats were, and had used H.H.’s services a number of times to find bits of information here and there throughout the Isles. In fact, it was H.H. himself who had sent Thomas the dispatch that had brought him to Baleton. Thomas decided it was best to keep this particular bit of information to himself. For now, anyway.

Thomas gave Cholly one of his calling cards, and told him that he and Meagan were staying at the ‘Flask while in town for business, and that he must come join them there for a drink in the next day or so. Cholly enthusiastically agreed, and in turn invited them to come visit him at the ‘Rat hole. Thomas was more than happy to accept the invitation, and promised a visit within a few days, and Billie nodded in agreement. It would be interesting to see this group of kids up close, and as much as she didn’t want to admit it – she knew that going there would be a bit like going home.

Cholly waved and went on his way to regroup his ‘Rats, and Billie and Thomas made their way back up toward the ‘Flask. Their meeting with Daud was still a few hours away, and while neither was particularly sleepy, both were fairly tired. When they got to the ‘Flask, they went up to Lottie’s room where Thomas laid down and within minutes was snoring. Billie never could stand snoring, and ended up spending most of the remaining time downstairs at the bar deep in thought.


	50. Lily in the Wilds

Lily woke up in a sweat, tangled uncomfortably in the layers of thin wool blankets that were sticking to her and itching her terribly. She shivered in the thin bitter cold of the morning, the chill of the air seeping through the blankets and into her damp clothes. The light in the hanging lamp above the small round table had guttered low during the night, and the fire in the stove was still alive – but barely. She lay still in the dark of the morning, still processing the nightmare that woke her.

A creeping dread came over her, and she slowly brought her hands to her midsection and snatched them quickly away from the hard round rise of her belly. She lay there for a moment longer, wondering if she was truly awake. Slowly she unwound the blankets from around herself, finding it difficult to maneuver around with the unfamiliar bulk of her body. Her chest felt heavy and sore, and as she sat up her head swam and she was suddenly, almost violently, thirsty.

She needed water, no – not the canteen water, but cold water – water so cold it would burn all the way down. She stood carefully, testing out her new weight and balance. A weight that she had not felt in her dream dragged down on her, and her back and legs were aching in a way she had not thought possible. Her bones hurt. She was nauseated to her core. Water, she needed water. She looked down at herself, dismayed at the sight. She smelled horrible, and her clothes were shifted around her differently now, the seams burst open and torn where they would not stretch. How long had she been here asleep?

She looked around the room, everything where it had last been set down when Lib had helped her get settled… last night? Months? She was confused, her mind fuzzed and slow – nothing made sense. Her thoughts were overwhelmed with needing water, cold water. _**Cold water. Now.**_ Lily pulled a damp blanket from the bed and wrapped it around herself loosely, and let herself out. 

The sun was just beginning to hint over the horizon and it was pushing above it a violently red sky. Wait, wasn’t there just a red sky last night? She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. _**Water, cold water. Cold water now. Now.**_ She wandered out, stumbling – struggling not to vomit, her hair hanging in her face. She was wobbling on her feet, swaying like a drunk but she had to get to the pump. She remembered where it was thankfully, a little ways up the bend from the shack.

There was no one there at the pump, no one to wait behind, and nothing to stop her. Lily fell to her knees in front of the pump. She was so tired, so tired. _**Cold water. NOW. NOW.**_ Lily weakly pumped the handle, hoping she wouldn’t have to prime the pump and she nearly wept when a sudden strong clear stream gushed out of the spigot. She bent with her head sideways, taking in huge gulps of water. It was so very cold. Her hair was quickly soaked, but still she drank. The water streamed down her front side, sticking the shirt and blanket to her like a freezing second skin. A frigid puddle formed around her knees, soaking into her breeches, her socks and boots. She drank until she was dizzy and her vision thick with tears. Finally she was sated and sat up, only to bend over in agony as she was knifed hard with an excruciating cramp from within.

She hitched and crawled away from the pump as best she could, and then vomited in the stiff Wilds grass – purging so hard that she lost control of her bodily functions, her breeches suddenly warm with her own acrid piss. _**Cold water. More. NOW.**_ She crawled back to the pump, her breath ragged and began pumping more water. Again she drank, gulping the water in huge droughts. _**Enough.**_ She sat up on her knees, letting the water settle inside her. Her face was blotched and mottled from the cold, her nostrils rimmed red, and her lips were numb. Her teeth hurt. She felt her vision going gray, and tried to control her breathing… _three in the nose, five out the mouth, three in the nose, five out the mouth..._

She looked down into the puddle to find a focus point, something to fix on to stop the dizziness. The water began to run off, and she watched in wonder as the mud sloughed away leaving a smooth gray-white slick underneath. It looked shiny, and soft and… she ran a finger through the thick cold (dirt?) – no, _clay_. She knew what clay was, of course but she had never seen it before – not like this, so wet and soft. She scooped a glob up on her finger and brought it close to her face to examine it more closely. It smelled like something fresh and mineral, clean in an organic way. She hesitantly touched the tip of her tongue to it, and then scraped the blob of clay from her finger with her teeth. _**More. MORE.**_ She began to pull more small blobs of clay from the soft ground with her finger – first small ones, and then large globs with all of her fingers – hand to mouth, hand to mouth. She began crying – her sobs quickly escalating to loud brays, her hair matting to her face and getting into her mouth, snot was bubbling from her nose and running freely down her lips and chin, and the clay was gritting painfully between her teeth but she couldn’t stop. She wept and gorged, not noticing the slow gathering of Wilds folk behind her.


	51. Babe in the 'Wilds

The small crowd quieted their frightened whispers, and parted to let the Elder woman through to speak to the girl. The Elder woman was not old by general standards - her years not numbered more than sixty, but in the ‘Wilds old age was a rarity. Most of the ‘Wilds folk died naturally and peacefully before their fifth decade closed. There was no particular illness or constitutional weakness in the ‘Wilds lines, it was just the way of their breed. There were those like the Elder woman who did live far beyond their years, and they died only at the moment of birth of the one destined to replace them. Once in a generation, perhaps in longer spans of times, an infant in the ‘Wilds would be born with vestigial eyes, black and shrunken and useless for common sight but able to see far beyond the boundaries of this world. The Elder witnessing the birth would die peacefully at the bedside of the newborn, their work come to completion and their journey at its end. The Elder woman wondered if by some chance the child this girl was carrying would be the end of _her_ journey.

The ‘Wild folk had told the Elder woman that there had been no signs of the girl being pregnant the day before when she had been seen with the big woman Hammer, returning to the cabin after a long absence. The Elder woman stood at a short distance from the girl, breathing in sharply through her nose and caught the scent of the blood of the child within the girl, and immediately knew that even outside of the extraordinary circumstances that this was no ordinary child.

The Elder woman approached slowly. The girl did not seem to notice her, until the Elder woman got to within a few feet of her.

The girl stood unsteadily, clearly weak, and turned - finally seeing the small gathering of ‘Wilds folk there and her eyes widened in fear at the sight of the Elder woman. She raised her hands, palms open and began backing away but stumbled and her weariness overcame her as she fainted and crumpled to the ground in a heap. The Elder woman could sense that the girl was within a month of giving birth, perhaps a week or so more. She knelt by the girl’s side and began touching her clammy greasy skin gently here and there gleaning what she could from the patterns in the girl’s blood.

From the reports she had gotten from the ‘Wilds folks about the girl’s erratic behavior – particularly with her attempt to eat her way down into the earth, the Elder woman was certain that she would feel either an eyeless one slumbering in her belly, or perhaps the rebirth of the sleeping god, ready to wake - bringing a long-overdue prophecy to fruition, but something was not right. She had expected to find ‘Wilds blood in the child’s veins, but she didn’t. It wasn’t unheard of for ‘Wilds and common folk to mix, after all. What concerned her wasn’t the absence of ‘Wilds blood, but that _she couldn’t feel a father at all._

As she molded her palm firmly over the mound of the girl’s belly, she could feel the outlines of the child and could see a mix of patterns in its blood and fluids that suggested a hint of the sleeping god, but only that – just a whisper. Definitely not an eyeless one. The Elder woman felt something else riding the blood within this child, a dark swath of Ctoggha, the cythraul-hunleff – the nightmare demon of the Void that the common folk called ‘The Outsider.’

She and her people had no fight with Ctoggha – the sleeping god and Ctoggha had settled their differences in this place over two thousand years ago, and per their truce, Ctoggha did not meddle with the people here. The ‘Wilds folk were firmly the people of the sleeping god – he lived in each and every one of them, hints of his form woven into their very features – a clear reminder for all time. A hint of the sleeping god made sense, but the patterns of Ctoggha within this child did not. Ctoggha meddled freely in the lives of those throughout the Isles, and had for thousands of years but never had she heard in any of the histories of an incident where he had, or would - incorporate himself into the matter of a living human. She could not bring herself to believe that the he would do such a thing – the consequences would be catastrophic to his realm. No, Ctoggha was a self-preserving thing. It would not knowingly birth its own destruction. She needed to look deeper.

She placed both hands on the mound of the girl’s belly and opened her mind into ever widening circles, sending threads of energy deeper into the child and pulling out what information she could – how was this possible? The sleeping god, the nightmare-demon and something else… a corrupted elder(?), some dimensionless formless thing from beyond the stars that had warped and twisted itself into this dimension, and somehow into the very matter of this living child. As she focused the threads of energy on this … _thing_ , she felt something skittering back up the psychic threads, some dark energy making its way back up the threads with a spiderlike quickness - whatever it was had sensed her probing. The Elder woman snatched her hands quickly away from the girl’s belly, instantly breaking the threads of energy that she had sent forth into the child.

The Elder woman gestured with her hands, pulling a protective cloak of energy up from the earth, deep from the realm of the sleeping god below and wound it around both herself and the girl. The Elder woman was deeply troubled at what she sensed inside this child. No, this was not the rebirth of their sleeping god - not the prophecy, so what was it? For the first time in her existence, she felt a twinge of fear creeping into her dealings with these old ones, eternally locked in cycles of war and indifference. This could not be the work of the elders. There was no circumstance in which this sort of _mingling_ would happen of any of their volitions - the elder gods did not share, and certainly would not in this way. What could this blasphemy possibly mean?

Her people would want to know what all of this meant, and for once she was not sure what to tell them. She stood, deciding what to do next. She could not leave the girl lying in the mud this way but she could not take her back to the cabin, either. The girl had been staying in the cabin of one of Cthogga’s marked ones, and had been staying there on and off through the years. The ‘Wilds people did not care who chose to stay or even live in the ‘Wilds, but they always kept a watchful eye. The Elder woman had not sensed the marked one return to his cabin in years, but it was still firmly protected. At the heart of the cabin lay embedded a charm of Ctoggha, a powerful talisman carved from the bones of a whale that surrounded the cabin with a nearly impenetrable cloak of protective Void energy. The whales, once the psychically-nurturing creatures of the sleeping god, now belonged to Ctoggha – their gentle psychic nurturing energy warped and twisted into bloody shreds of pain and suffering that powered and fed the Void. Their very bones were poison to the sleeping god now, and thus to all in the ‘Wilds that carried the sleeping god within them. While these charms would not _kill_ anyone in the ‘Wilds, being around them was unpleasant enough to avoid them at all costs. The waves of energy emanating from the dark charms were particularly intense and painful for the Elder woman. No, she couldn’t take the girl back to the cabin.

She gestured to a few of the folk to pick the girl up _… gently now…_ and take her to the Lodge, her own cabin just a ways up the road heading back toward the strid way. She sent one of the runners to carry a message to Hammer, asking her to come to the ‘Wilds at the soonest opportunity, and bring large comfortable clothes and nourishing food for the girl.

The girl started to stir by the time they got to the Lodge, though she wasn’t making much sense. Her words were stumbling over one another, full of talk about frog-fish men and doubt(?) and people under the strid. She was clearly delirious, so while the others were helping get the girl seated comfortably and wrapping her with thick blankets, the Elder woman made a quick mix of a few teas and herbs and steeped a weak brew that would help the girl sleep, at least until the woman Hammer could get here. She dropped a mint leaf on top of the warm liquid and handed the thick mug to Iwan Price, the sturdy ‘Wilds man who had carried the bulk of the girl. He was speaking to the girl to help get her calmed, using the Common words he knew mixed in with ‘Wilds and filling in with comforting tuts and sounds as best as he could. He handed the mug to the girl, who had gone a distressing shade of gray from the cold, though it could have been the slick of clay around her mouth and smeared all over her face. Her teeth were chattering, and her wet hair hung limp and tangled around her face. The girl took the mug gratefully, at first sipping politely and then gulping the fragrant warmth. Within minutes her eyes grew heavy, and the Elder woman – along with help from a few of the other ‘Wilds women went about cleaning the girl up. They carefully washed and scrubbed, the girl none the wiser until there was no more grit or dirt or thankfully _smell_. The girl’s hair was beyond help – so matted, tangled and dirty that they sheared it off into a short neat cut. After the girl was clean, dry and dressed in layers of some lended clothing they bundled her up under the warm covers on one of the free beds in the Lodge. The Lodge was not only the Elder woman's cabin - it served as both a spiritual center and a hospital – curing and soothing ills of both a spiritual and a physical nature of those in the 'Wilds. The girl would be safe here. The women talked quietly amongst themselves, settling in while they waited for Hammer to come and claim the girl.

There was much talk about the prophecy, and whether the child might be an eyeless one. The Elder woman held her tongue, choosing not to share what she knew until she could find out more. In a few hours – probably near to sundown, Hammer would be here and the Elder woman had many questions for her that she hoped she would find answers for.


	52. After-hours at Stridside Curious Goods

At five o’clock sharp, Daud ushered the last customer of the day out of his shop and locked up. Mackinnon days were always brisk sales days for Daud, and today had been no exception. The take was a little higher than usual, and he had plenty of work to do before Thomas and Lurk got here for their meeting. He balanced his till, put the day’s take in his safe, recorded his sales against his inventory in his ledger and quickly straightened the shop up for the next day. Afterward, he had about a half-hour left to burn, so he went up to his office and poured a stiff drink and smoked. He had been in a particularly foul mood all day, and it had not been helped by being caught off-guard in his own goddamned store where he clearly couldn’t address the situation.

He had seen them as they walked in, hardly believing his eyes. Surely they hadn’t been so brazen as to approach him in this way in public, but he had thankfully been mistaken. They played their parts well, and he played his. When he saw Thomas and Lurk he had felt a welcome quickening in his blood – a sensation that took him back to his days at the hideout. For a second, he was the Assassin – and it had been harder to switch back to Hearne Merrock than he had thought it would be. He had tamped the Assassin back down inside himself, and deliberately kept Thomas and Lurk cooling their heels – enjoying in a small mean way the impatience he saw both of them stewing in, and especially enjoying the confused looks on their faces when he dismissed them so casually.

He normally wasn’t one to enjoy petty meanness in this way, but his irritation and temper had been building all day. The ringing in his ears had not let up a single bit since waking up from his nightmare. Everywhere he went, every customer he spoke to – even taking a leak midday, it was there. It was much like the trilling hissing sound that charms and runes would emanate – wisps of almost notes and tones, but somehow pitched differently. He had never heard anything like it. Some part of him wondered if he had suffered some sort of injury inside his brain. Thoughts of senility had crossed his mind too, but he put those aside as quickly as they surfaced – cramming them down into the locked parts of his mind where he sent his more disturbing thoughts to go to die. 

He had known that it was only a matter of time before Lurk would find him. He hadn’t imagined it would be under these particular circumstances, though. To think of it, he wasn’t sure exactly what he was expecting – just that she would find him eventually. Thomas though, he wasn’t sure about – he hadn’t been expecting that. He and Thomas had never shared any particular bond outside of the sharing of his powers. After Billie left, something inside him had burned out and had been replaced with … well, nothing. There was no time for friendship, or camaraderie. No time, and no desire. Thomas was good at what he did and his information ever useful, but he just wasn’t Lurk.

He wasn’t sure exactly what the difference was between them, but there was something that Lurk inherently had that Thomas had not. Perhaps it was in the way the abilities shared through the bond affected each of them? In Thomas, it had manifested as merely a tool to be used. In Lurk, it had been more – the ability set wasn’t just something she was able to put to good (or bad, as it were) use, it had dovetailed neatly with her already adept skills and the use of it was more natural with her, more instinctual. In fact, Lurk was as natural with Delilah’s skills as she was with Daud’s. Daud suspected that Delilah had also noticed this about Lurk, and had planned to exploit it in ways that Daud would not have. More than once Daud had wondered why it was that The Outsider hadn’t marked Lurk directly, though he reckoned that it would not have been a good idea. Billie Lurk was a wild card – great with a touch of power, probably not so much with an abundance of it.

He visualized the meeting in his mind, following each possibility of conversation to its conclusion - thinking about how much or how little he wanted to share with Lurk and Thomas. Unfortunately, it would not be a simple matter of drinks, smokes and catching up followed by bittersweet goodbyes and a friendly postcard twice a year. No, this certainly was not a friendly catchup – nor, he was sure, was it a coincidence. Coincidences just didn’t happen for Daud. He drained the last of the rum from his old chipped Watch mug, and checked his pocketwatch. He had time for one more cigarette. He was stubbing it out when he heard the knocking from down below.

Daud came down the stairs from his office, and opened the door for Thomas and Lurk. For a few minutes, there was a bit of uncomfortable hemming and hawing. No one seemed to know what to say. Daud led them up to his office. He still was not sure he wanted either of them in his basement, not yet, anyway. He gestured to the chairs in front of his desk, and pulled his chair around from his desk to sit directly across from them. He crossed his leg with his ankle over his knee, and sat back in his chair casually, his hands interlaced and resting on his belly. He did not want his body language to reflect the tight wad of tense springs that his insides had become. He was Daud. He intended to act like it. He stared pointedly at Lurk and Thomas, not saying a word. Daud was a master at this – he found that if he set his jaw, and furrowed his brow in just the right way and stared with a purpose, people would talk. Oh, _would_ they talk. The less he said, the more people tended to babble – telling him far more than he had asked or wanted to know. As expected, they both started talking at once over each other. Billie gestured for Thomas to go first, but Thomas insisted that she start and so she did.

Lurk evidently remembered the protocol with briefings, and just as in the years before she got straight to it: no bullshit, no fluff. Daud had asked her why she was here and her answer threw him. He only barely managed to keep a straight face, his eyes giving away exactly no surprise.

“Why am I here?! I’m here because you _called_ me, old man - you called both of us. As soon as you did, I knew where you were. So, I’m here.”

Daud said nothing, and Lurk kept talking. She explained how she got the call from him in the dead hours just before dawn, and having been no further away than Old Lamprow - had been able to answer the call sooner rather than later. But Billie being Billie, the more she talked and studied his face, the more it became clear that she knew he didn’t remember calling on her. Eventually she called him out on it.

“Are you telling me you don’t **_remember_**? You were screaming and out of control – I’d daresay you were shitfaced drunk as well. I came here thinking I was going to have to rescue you.” Lurk sat back, the look on her face clearly showing her annoyance at what she did find. She leaned forward and looked directly at him with a sort of half-smirk “I expected to find you _tied_ to a chair, not _selling_ one.”

Daud ignored the last quip, and looked at Thomas, and raised an eyebrow – signaling that it was his turn. Thomas was far more nervous than Lurk. Daud could tell that there was something he was hiding – not only from Daud, but from Lurk as well. He was fidgeting in a way that had seemed uncharacteristic for the Thomas he once knew.

Daud leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and narrowed his eyes at Thomas. Daud dispensed with the lead-in. “You’re hiding something from me, Thomas. Not smart.”

Thomas was flustered at first, but then deflated somewhat as he took the dispatch out of his pocket and handed it to Daud. Billie looked on with interest, obviously not knowing what this dispatch was. Daud read it, and then read it again more slowly. There was always something between the lines in these dispatches, and this was no exception. Even beyond the contrived reference to Daud, there was something more. “Who gave this to you?”

Thomas sighed deeply, and explained that it was a local lowlife named Hilliard Humphreys. He hadn’t wanted to give up his source, explaining that he was afraid that the gentleman’s reputation would have given the dispatch considerably less credence. Daud was relieved - this evidently was all that there was to Thomas’s visit. Well, that and answering a call that Daud didn't remember sending. So Thomas was hoping good old Mr. Merrock would know where to find Daud. Well, Daud supposed Thomas got what he ultimately wanted at any rate. He wondered if Thomas had given any serious thought as to what exactly he would do once he did find him. Probably not. He doubted Thomas ever really expected to see him again.

Things were starting to make a little more sense now, some of them anyway. Looked like the strange red-head Rose was working with H.H. do a little shake down and blackmail. He wondered how H.H. found out – or perhaps it was the woman who told him. Either way when he found these two, it wouldn’t matter. He would get it out of one or both of them.

Daud wondered what the going price was on his head now, and wondered who would be administering the payout for it. He was still unsure about the possession, but that was something that would take a considerable amount of time to figure out. May as well take care of this relatively small matter – one less thing to worry about. He looked forward to the look on that bitch’s face when he blew her plan up right in front of her.

Now it was Daud’s turn to talk. He explained, with scant detail, the evening that he and Gryffid met Rose and how she had taunted him for some time now. He told them about her buying The Knife of Dunwall, and her odd behavior during the transaction. She must have known at that time, drawing it out until the night she nearly poisoned him with that fucking drink. He had blacked out, he said – and that must have been when he called Thomas and Lurk, though he genuinely didn’t remember doing so. He also filled them in a little on Lily, omitting the possession – how she had been a ‘Rat, and had left them to come work for him, at a great risk to her life. H.H. must have gotten to her somehow, or she heard through some other channel. Either way – Lily now knew that he was Daud, and she had run off. He knew she wasn’t dead and in fact knew where she may be, but if H.H. found her, he would kill her. It was safer not to go after her right now, in case H.H. was watching him.

Lurk said that she had never met H.H. but had seen this Rose at the ‘Flask, and she evidently had been showing up there just to be bitch – considering how she snagged H.H. from one of the girls there, a _pregnant_ girl no less. Daud was glad that at least one of them had a name to that face. It would make things easier for the plan already forming in his head. Thomas said that he had only met H.H. once some years ago in Baleton, but that he had only had sparse written correspondence with him since then. H.H. would primarily just relay tips and information from various shady characters drifting through Baleton in exchange for coin. Nothing of much import had turned up, until he got the dispatch about Daud being found. He had no doubt he would recognize H.H. if he saw him.

Daud considered his options as he formed his plan. With H.H. out of the picture, Lily would be safe. Wouldn’t hurt to take out Rose while he was at it. He could go after Rose and H.H. himself, but if he had Thomas and Lurk with him, it might be a little easier. He doubted either still had much, if any fight in them but there was strength in numbers regardless. Especially if Daud armed them with pistols. Daud decided it was time to take them down to the basement. There was much to discuss.


	53. Chapter 53

The first thing Billie noticed when she was walking down the stairs into the basement was the distinct change in the air. Down here, the air seemed thinner – more clear, charged. It reminded her of the times during the end of her tenure with the Whalers when they would encounter pylons or walls of light. The thick smell of ozone wasn’t in the air here, but the air held a similar charge. She thought she was becoming light-headed as she descended but realized she wasn’t becoming light-headed so much as just _light_ in general. Her step seemed lighter, and she could feel the weight of her years lifting off of her. As she had aged, and was later maimed – the years piled on with a dense heaviness as if making up for the time she had enjoyed infused with the energy of the Void through Daud. Even her once-sanguine voice had become sterile and defeated. She glanced at Thomas to study his face, and she could tell that the further down he went into the basement the higher his eyebrows seemed to go. Yes, he felt something too. She wondered what Daud had down here – it had to be a shrine, she couldn’t think of anything else that would draw and distill such a distinct spectrum of sensations from the air. She found herself nearly trembling with excitement, forcing herself to stay within the plodding pace she had settled into over the past years. She wanted to feel this again. She knew that Thomas did as well – knew it clearly enough to realize that as the three of them made their way into the basement, they were connecting again in some way. She didn’t feel the Void within her, but she certainly could feel the beginnings of it creeping into them from all around. Her soul was dry and her mind thirsty – moreso than she could have imagined, now that she was close to Daud again. Close to the Void within him.

The basement was not exactly what she had been expecting. No shrine, for one. There didn’t seem to be anything unusual or particularly interesting in the dry, clean, neatly arranged space. There was an impressive safe, rows of neatly labeled crates, a few filing cabinets, some old bookshelves here and there and a table with some chairs around it. They sat around the table, and Daud began laying out a plan.

Tonight, yes – tonight – this very night they would go up the Traehorne castle ruins where Rose and H.H. had evidently set up camp. Daud did not know how he knew this – but he felt very strongly that was where they were. How Rose and H.H. lived there, and survived the harsh cold nights they weren’t sure but Daud had it in his mind that they must have cleared some of the rubble and found a way down into the lower levels, setting up a camp of sorts below ground. Rose had been seen in town more than a few times, but H.H. hadn’t been seen at all in some time. Thomas told Daud about what H.H. had done by way of rearranging a boy’s face – a young boy still with his milk teeth, barely out of his nappies, and recounted his conversation with Cholly Shanks. Daud was distressed to hear about H.H. nearly killing one of his own ‘Rats. The man was no better than your average river krust scum, but he didn't think he would have beaten a child like that. Roughing up a kid was one thing – many a ‘Rat kid had gone hobbling back to the ‘Rat hole with a genuine Merrock bootprint on their arse at one time or other, but this? From what Cholly had said, the boy’s face had burst open on impact and it was unbelievable that he had lived with no permanent damage outside of scars. H.H. had not been seen since, and Cholly had taken over the ‘Rats. Daud was duly impressed. Cholly was young, but he had the perfect balance of nurture and malice that made him a good natural leader for such organizations.

They spoke briefly about Cholly, and what – if any, help he could bring in this situation. They decided that discussion of Cholly would be tabled for now, and if needed at a later time they would approach him. As for Rose and H.H., Daud’s plan was simple. Sneak in, corner them both in the darkness underneath the castle ruins and ambush them. Daud no longer had the ampoules he needed to make sleep darts – at least not tonight anyway, so he would have to rely on the old fallback of choking them out. Billie and Thomas would cover him with their pistols and once Daud had extracted what they knew, and how much they knew – and more importantly, who they worked for - they would kill them and leave them to rot in the darkness. It wouldn’t take much more than a shift of rubble to hide the entrance and Daud had no doubt that no one would ever go looking for them. Daud sat back and asked Billie and Thomas what they thought.

Thomas was looking down at the table, ashing a cigarette he had barely smoked and Billie just looked at Daud dumbfounded. “Daud. There is only one small complication that I see with your plan. Have you somehow failed to notice that you're old, I’m crippled and he's fat?” “Hey, now” harrumphed Thomas indignantly. Daud sat back, his expression never changing, and asked if they truly felt as Billie had described. Billie had to admit he had a point. Down here, particularly in this light Daud did not look old at all. He looked even more like himself than he had earlier in the afternoon. She looked over at Thomas, whose face – even though frowning, didn’t look as pasty or puffy as it had earlier. Even Billie felt different, now that she thought about it. She could feel her phantom arm beyond her stump, wiry and strong as ever. She should feel tired, but she didn’t. She felt alive for the first time in a long time. She lit a cigarette and sat back thinking of what to say next. Thomas was the next to speak. He asked Daud if they intended to go out in what they had on, or if they needed to make some arrangements for darker clothing – something more suited for what they were about to do. Daud hadn’t thought about that, surprisingly, but assured them that anything approaching a uniform or any unusual dress for Baleton would probably draw unwanted attention if anyone were to see them. No, they would be discreet and would look discreet doing it. 

Daud stood and walked to his safe, opening it quickly and then dragged out his old Whaler trunk. Billie felt a pang of something like sadness when she saw it – there it was, looking exactly as it did when she left Ports of Call and a note at the foot of his bed when she left the hideout. He opened it with the top of the lid facing Billie and Thomas, and Billie wanted more than anything to walk around there and see what was inside but she didn’t dare. Daud’s trunk was always a private zone – not one of the Whalers would have dared even try to sneak a peek into it when Daud opened it, much less take it upon themselves to attempt to open it in Daud's absence. Billie doubted that the years had changed Daud’s intense hold on his privacy.

Daud rummaged for a bit and then to both Thomas’s and Billie’s surprise, gestured them over to look inside. They both stood, perhaps a little too quickly judging from the faint shadow of a smirk playing around Daud’s mouth. When Billie looked in, she was taken back in time and could not do much more than stare. There was his blade, his harness with its many pouches for holding ampoules and bonecharms – and in a jumble beside it, his collection of runes and charms.

“May I” asked Billie, and when Daud nodded she picked up the rune on top and held it in her hand in wonder – it didn’t look like she remembered them looking, nor did it feel as _dense_. This one was large, but very light – the porous surface pocked from the passing years. It was dull, and the fittings rusted – the carving on faded to barely a shadow. Daud explained to them that when a rune was used and the power transferred it lost its charge and degraded. Most people would simply discard them, but Daud kept his. All of them, apparently. Daud had always been quiet, nearly secretive with his use of the runes and charms - and it would not have occurred to his Whalers to dare bother him by asking specifics about them or their use. Billie, and then later Thomas - had collected them from hidden places and given them to Daud during their time with him, but neither never knew what became of them after. There was much Billie hadn’t realized about the use of these. Dropping to her knees, she sifted freely through the charms and runes. There were the usual three-pronged ones that she had seen plenty of and had herself owned, but many that she had never encountered. There were crescents, two-pronged and flat ovals. Some were elegant and had a mellow polish, others were monstrosities of black broken charms cobbled back together with rough shards of whalebone and bits of wire. Delilah’s coven had made plenty of the latter – even the aura of them had been filthy and warped. She could feel a hint of low vibration coming from the charms as she held them – they did not have the hollow burned out quality of the runes.

The charms held and kept a charge, Daud explained – they seemed to act to augment a particular ability rather than charge and then burn out. Daud joined her, bending to his knees – sorting through the charms and pulling out a few that he felt would be useful for tonight’s job. He pulled a couple for himself and handed Billie and Thomas a couple. Thomas held his in his hands, looking at them in a near stupor. It hadn't been unheard of for Daud to give these to Whalers sometimes, but after he gave that one to the poor bastard who lost all of his teeth from it, none of the Whalers were particularly keen to have them. Thomas had not used them, and he was pretty sure Billie hadn't either.

Daud continued to rummage, pulling out a pair of very well-crafted whalebone-inlaid clockwork pistols – one red, and one black, that Billie and Thomas hadn’t seen the likes of before. Daud’s old Whaler pistol was there – one he had nicked from the body of a Watch guard, but it looked relatively harmless next to these beauties. Daud handed the red one to Billie, and the black one to Thomas.

Each pistol in the pair was a masterful design of form and function. They were heavy but sleek – the grips relatively short but molded perfectly for any size palm. Each of the grips ended in an unusual butt cap that looked to be a crown-like bristle of sharp teeth. The grips were cypress burl, polished and oiled to rich ripples of black and deep red-brown with intricately carved whalebone detailing inlaid so precisely as to appear to be part of the burl itself. Billie turned the red one sideways in her palm, admiring the glow of the brass clockwork mechanism that powered the pistol. The metal fittings were unusual – the pistol she held had red metal fittings, and the other black. Not metal dyed or heat-tempered these colors, but were the actual color of the metal itself. Billie could not imagine where they had come from – they looked a bit old fashioned, and held no characteristics of any place in the Isles that she had been. Thomas gave a low whistle as he tested the balance of the black pistol – it was balanced perfectly, and seemed made for his trigger hand. He had figured this for more of a novelty item when he first saw it, but even the most well-crafted pistols he had held in his time had lacked this near-perfect balance.

While Daud was continuing to rummage in his trunk, he answered the question that neither had asked but were bound to with these pieces in their hands. “Six shooter, reload time from the clip - less than a second.” Billie and Thomas goggled at Daud and looked down at their pistols with an even greater appreciation. Billie laid the red pistol on the table and sat down to smoke. Daud seemed to find something he was looking for and called Billie’s name. She looked up, instinctively raising her hand to catch the object she hadn’t known Daud was going to throw. When she caught it, she held it in her lap and looked at it for what seemed a long time, lost in thought. She didn’t need to look inside to see her and Deidre’s intertwined initials scratched in the inside of the mask. She knew it was hers before Daud had dug it out and pulled it from the trunk. Something was definitely changing, rapidly. In the time they had been down in the basement, nearly twenty years of distance had contracted to nearly nothing and their connections to one another were coalescing as naturally as if they had last parted ways days and not decades ago. Billie decided to test this.

She had always had an uncanny ability to communicate with Daud in ways that had never failed to unsettle him. She merely had to concentrate and send her thoughts to Daud and he would speak to her as if she had spoken aloud. She sent to him the strongest thought at the forefront of her mind: _Daud, its time. We're going to need the bond._

Daud stood abruptly and looked at her, his brow knitted in a familiar way – part annoyance, part wary admiration. “Yes, its time.”

Thomas nodded, his thoughts clearly in line with Billie’s. She wasn’t sure if Thomas had a similar bond with Daud after she left the Whalers, but down here in this basement it was clear that they both did now. Daud came to them, and they sat down at the table ready for the bond. Thomas had a glint in his eye – one that Billie remembered, but had not seen until this moment. They sat for a moment, and Daud seemed to remember something – he stood and went back toward his safe to a set of shelves on the other side of it. When he returned to the table, he had a bottle of Orbon and three squat glasses. He poured each of them a particularly stiff drink, and one for himself. They drank these, and each had another round. It was time.

Billie had been looking forward to this moment for a long time. She knew that Thomas had been too, though neither would have admitted just how much they needed it. She cleared her mind, readying herself for the surge. She remembered how good it had felt the first time.

Daud had asked her to come up to his private quarter in the old hideout not long after she joined up with him in 1829. She wasn’t sure what to expect from this, having only been there less than a month but she followed. When she got inside his room, he shut the door behind her, locked it and took off his coat. Billie shivered inside but vowed to show not an ounce of fear. If he touched her, she would simply kill him or die trying. He rolled up his sleeves over his scarred forearms, some of his nicks and wounds still fresh. He walked up to her, got right in her face in fact and looked down into her eyes in the same way he had that first night she had come to him. Billie refused to allow herself to flinch. He did not touch her, or lean further forward. Daud was looking deep into her eyes, searching for _something_ and in that moment, she realized she had terribly misjudged his intention. The smell coming off of him was carrion and sweat, rank and unpleasant but underneath there was something else – something that she couldn’t identify, but in some part of her mind associated with kinship rather than lovers. He had evidently found whatever he was looking for and stepped back. Daud had held his hands palm-down in front of her and asked her what she saw. She had seen the mark, and described it. This seemed to satisfy Daud, and he guided her toward the only place to sit in his room: his bed. She sat nervously, waiting for whatever it was he was going to do. He sat down beside her and began to explain what the mark was, what it was for and where it had come from. She had picked up enough already from chatter that Daud had been marked by the Outsider but she didn’t know what it meant for her. As if reading her thoughts, he explained that he was able to share these gifts and had seen in her eyes a sign that he was meant to share them with her. He did not explain or clarify, and to this day Billie still didn’t know what it was he saw. He had asked her to close her eyes, and do her best to empty her thoughts. He talked to her in low voice, the cadence and pitch of his words forming a rhythm which seemed to resonate with something deep inside her brain. She felt a sort of _push_ from him, from his thoughts, and she opened her mind to accept him. It hit her like a rush of fiery hard liquor burning through her system – a warm explosion blooming from somewhere in her middle, more satisfying than anything she had felt prior in her life - well, almost. Every part of her tingled, every hair on her body stood and every part of her wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of her days following this man wherever his path took him. He had bonded with her, and their bond ran deep. The bond was her touchpoint, her guide – until that cunt Delilah came along.

Billie’s mood went somber with these thoughts, and she looked down. When she looked up again, Daud was looking at her intently and said “it’s ok, Billie – that was a long time ago.” Thomas said nothing, just nodded. Billie knew that some part of Thomas would never forgive her betrayal. 

Daud started by asking them to clear their thoughts, and empty their minds as well as they could. The rum had helped to relax their thoughts, make their pathways pliable. Billie could feel her mind softening and opening. Her eye closed slightly in anticipation, and she could see that Thomas had taken a similar stance. Their breathing slowed and they waited. A minute went by. Two. Twenty. Nothing. It usually happened more quickly than this. Billie surfaced in her thoughts and looked over at Daud. He was looking down at his hands with a horrorstruck look on his face. Billie went into instant alert, and Thomas surfaced just as quickly.

“Daud.. **Daud!** What is it?” Daud would not look up at her at first, but finally he did. She could not read his expression but his words were clear enough. “The bond. It’s gone.”


	54. The Whalers at the Castle Ruins: Lightning strikes twice

Daud looked away from Billie and back down at his hands, turning them over and flexing them – studying the mark. It didn’t look any different than it ever had and outside of what had just happened, his abilities had felt the same as well. Well, not quite. He thought it may have been his imagination, or perhaps just being out of practice but his abilities seemed enhanced in some way. He hadn’t noticed a difference in the scope of his abilities but he had been aware of a heightened sense of them. He had tried to put out of his mind the fact that he no longer needed the solution to replenish, but clearly it was time to face the anomalies both good and bad. He had never had a failure of his bond in this way. Yes, there were times where the recipient was simply not meant to have it, and in that way it ‘failed’, but this was different. He could feel both Billie and Thomas were pliant and ready. They had dropped deep into their minds and had opened them. All Daud had to do was focus the bond and allow the transfer. Sharing the bond was an unusual sensation. It was like flexing a small muscle from somewhere deep inside of himself, seemingly near the base of his skull. He would focus, flex, gesture and it would flow freely. This time when he focused and flexed, the gesture fell empty. There was simply nothing there to initiate the transfer. He had tried again, watching Billie and Thomas carefully but they didn’t notice him gesturing – much less gesturing for a second time.

He had stopped and tried to focus again, this time deeper – deeper past the warm glow of the Orbon but no path existed to take him where he needed to go inside of himself. He cleared his mind and suddenly, there was a small cold click in his brain - like the last stubborn tumbler of a lock succumbing to a masterful thief, his thoughts opened and he now realized what it was that the possession had taken from him – what was missing.

He was stunned – how? HOW? It had been ripped it from him just as he had… his mind skirted away quickly, not wanting to relive that bit, but along with what had been physically forced from him – it had pulled along with it the Arcane Bond, tearing it from the base of his brain. His mind clicked again and the implications of this began to sink in. He lost the bond to … what? To who? This thing, this person – strong enough to possess him, and Lily as well and mate them like farm animals – this thing now had the ability to pass this power to others. Daud felt himself going cold inside thinking of how something this monstrous would abuse this ability.

Daud’s mind did what it most often did at emotionally overwhelming moments – with an efficient seamless transition, he would drop suddenly into cold logic, his emotions pushed far to the outer edges of his brain. Only cold clinical rage remained now. He needed to think. His other abilities were intact, heightened. The loss of the bond must have redistributed the Void energy within him to his other abilities. That would explain the heighted sense of them that he had felt. Perhaps even explained why he didn’t need the solution. The balance had been tipped inside him, rendering it a self-sustaining system evidently.

A good twenty minutes had gone by since his first attempt. He was looking down at his hands, his face a rictus of horror and disgust, when Billie surfaced. She looked at him, demanding to know what was wrong and he told her. Billie had simply looked confused. She thought that if it had worked before, it should work now. Thomas was of a similar mind – he was surprised that it hadn’t taken when it had taken so well the first time.

“No, it isn’t like that. It isn’t that it didn’t work – I’m telling you that it is _gone_. The ability itself is gone.” Billie and Thomas both looked shocked, not understanding how something like that was possible. It couldn’t just disappear on its own, right? Could it? Daud couldn’t handle the questions right now. He calmly asked them to stop and listen to him. He laid out his alternative plan – yes, he still had his other abilities but he would need them to cover him. He pushed their pistols over to each of them, and stood to go to his trunk to get the clips. With these, they wouldn’t need more than two clips each. Anyone hit with one round, much less an entire clip would not survive. He felt more secure with two, though and figured they would as well. He showed them how to load their clips into the old clockwork pistols. He wished he had time to have them practice with them, since their kick was highly unusual but he just had to trust the voice screaming in his gut to get his ass over to the castle ruins **now** and kill those bastards.

He felt his blood thirst rising, his vision tingeing red around the edges as he thought of spilling blood again. The smell of the gun oil and the sound of loading up the clips were quickening his thirst. He could see Billie sneaking looks at him, studying his expression. He wondered if she was feeling it too – the rising excitement that came before each and every job, each Whaler coiled tight and willingly controlled by Daud, who at the precise moment would release them to their own blood thirst that he had planted in each and every one who had been receptive of his bond. He could see it in Thomas – his face looked leaner now, his eyes gone steely and his jaw set. Daud rummaged quickly through his odds and ends of various uniforms and leathers he owned, finding each a suitable harness and belt to carry their weapons. He wasn’t sure it would make a fuck’s worth of difference but had them tuck their bonecharms into the pockets of their harnesses all the same. If they couldn’t use them, perhaps it would provide a shield in some way. He needed to protect his Whalers.

They performed the same ritualistic steps they had done before each job so many years ago. Daud straightened his back, standing tall. He assured them that bond or not, they had a job to do. If Rose and H.H. knew about Daud, it was only a matter of time before they linked Billie and Thomas to him as well. If they got the information they needed from them before killing them, they could use Hearne Merrock’s network to find out further information and go about the business of debunking this whole business as a hoax. First things first though. They each checked and double checked their inventories, readying their weapons for immediate use, and taking time to stretch and relax down into assassin mode. Daud led them to his lab to show them some other things that might be useful for what they were about to do. It was a tight squeeze, but all three of them entered the lab under the stairs and Daud began to take small vials out of their racks and explain what each did. Billie and Thomas were impressed. These concoctions were far more deadly than anything they had known in their Whaler days. Yes, some of these could be useful indeed. He gave each of them a small vial of a particularly virulent poison instructing them to be careful. If it came to it, even a drop of it to the face would instantly drop a man twice the size of the largest Rothwild butcher. 

As Daud talked, he noticed that something in the right corner of the lab had grabbed Billie’s attention. He turned and looked at what she was peering at, seeing only that strange conjunction where the corners met under the stairs. He found it easier to look at now – strange. Before, he couldn’t seem to make his mind focus on what it was that was so difficult to look at. Billie didn’t seem to be bothered by it at all and as if in a daze wordlessly crouched low to place her hand in the very spot that seemed to be the center of … whatever it was. He watched her as she gasped and stood too quickly, whacking her head hard on the sloped area under the stairs. She inched back, looking at her hand in wonder. When she turned to look at him, she looked to have lost a good ten years off of her face in a single moment. Thomas seemed to understand, and he too leaned down to place his hand there as well. He made an ‘oof’ sound and lurched back, shaking his hand. He looked up at Daud, and it was like looking at a superimposed silvergraph of the old wiry Thomas and this older, softer Thomas. What the hell? Daud went and also reached his hand toward the area, only to have his mark flare painfully bright and send an arc of fiery sensation straight up his arm and fizz throughout his blood like a hissing fuse. The constant ringing in his ears reached a near-shattering pitch. He stood back and looked at the space there – solid wood, warped slightly – but solid. What was this? It felt like the charge of a shrine, but far more concentrated and dense. He looked at Billie and Thomas, who just shrugged and shook their heads. Thomas reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the bonecharms – it seemed to shimmer with heat, though it was not hot. Thomas smiled – the same thin cold smile of old and nodded toward Billie’s pocket. She reached in and pulled out one of hers and she too smiled locking eyes with Thomas. Daud was puzzled by their behavior, and gestured them out of the lab. It was time to get going.

It was dark out, the sky inky black with clouds lit occasionally by lightning – their undersides low and ragged, and heavy with rain. It hadn’t started raining yet, but they picked up their pace ahead of it, walking briskly toward the road leading out of the business district and up toward the castle ruins, the lighthouse shining brightly off in the distance up on the cliffs. Billie and Thomas seemed nearly buoyant – their steps light and purposeful. Billie had tried to explain what it was she felt in the corner of the lab but she was unable to articulate it past saying that it had felt like a time back on the ‘Wale where she had accidentally brushed against a live wire when trying to repair a faulty panel belowdecks. Thomas compared it to a time where he had narrowly avoided being struck full-on with an arc from a pylon during a job just after the plague hit, transversing at the very moment the arc had hit him. They both agreed that they felt better than they had in years, and Daud wondered what their reaction would be later when each had a chance to look in a mirror. The difference in them now was striking. He supposed that it had been equally striking in himself as well, and he had exactly no complaints about it, to be honest.

As they got closer to the castle ruins, Daud sent Lurk off to the flank the castle and cover from the left, and sent Thomas to flank right. They drew their pistols, and began the silent careful padding – making no noise with their footfalls. Daud cracked his knuckles, and began to approach straight in toward the ruins. 

He focused his mind on the charms in Lurk and Thomas’s pockets, noting their position and movements as they snuck around to the sides of the ruins. There seemed to be no one here. It was dark - the only light coming faintly over from the lighthouse sweeps, and there were no sounds except for the rumble of thunder and the sound of waves crashing on the rocks at the base of the cliff. The air was charged and brisk, the salted breeze carrying the freshness of the coming storm. Daud crouched, listening for any movements from within the ruins.

Daud gestured, and looked into the ruins with his Void Gaze. He could see the glow of the charms in Lurk and Thomas’s pockets now, and could see their outlines nestled in yellow auras, their lines of sight marked in faint cones. They were crouched, still, ready. In the ruins, Daud could see nothing. No telltale glow of life or resources. He crept closer, eyeing a tall chunk of what was left of a wall on which to blink himself up on to. He readied his gesture, and for a split second felt the hairs rising on the back of his neck as a void ripple tore through the air behind him. Before he could react, he was slammed from behind so hard that he lost his footing and fell face first into the rough rubble outside of the ruins of the walls of the castle smashing his temple on the scar side of his face hard on a sharp jut of stone. He shook it off quickly, ignoring the trickle of blood sliding down his face - springing to his feet and whirling around to face whoever it was who had appeared behind him. There was no one there.

He gestured and looked with his Void Gaze again, seeing someone rapidly approaching the side of the castle where Lurk had been crouched. She was on the move, and someone was right on her tail. He looked over toward Thomas, who was still crouched and still. Good, he hadn’t forgotten to know when to move and when to stay still. Daud sent out a message to Thomas _wait for my signal_ faintly Daud heard _yes, sir_. Whatever was in the lab had awakened something in Thomas, even without the bond. _Daud!_ Billie needed help. Daud transversed up onto a thick piece of wall above where he could make out Billie’s form below. He looked down, focused his vision and saw Hilliard Humphreys approaching her.

He was walking toward her as casually as if to say ‘good morning, how do you do’. He was not running now, merely walking Billie backward toward the edge of the castle where part of it had crumbled off and fallen down the side of the cliff. There was nowhere for Billie to go except over the side of the cliff, and H.H. seemed to be in no hurry as he approached her. Daud blinked down, and blinked again to get closer to H.H. – even though Daud was silent in his approach, H.H. stopped and turned to face him.

Daud did not allow his shock show on his face. It was H.H., but it _wasn’t_. One of his eyes was bulging out of his skull, his pupil appearing to have burst from the inside, filling his eyeball partly with a bloody black fluid. He was smiling, and his teeth were ragged and broken. His lower lip looked like a flap of lacerated meat from repeated gnashing from the sharp shards of what was left of his teeth. His hair was matted filth, and his clothes hung off of him in shreds. He did not speak. He raised his hand, and Daud recognized a fraction of a moment ahead of it that he was _gesturing_. Daud quickly sent out a tether, only to have H.H. wave it away with the ease of swatting away a fly. Outraged, Daud watched his tether melt into liquid black shreds, and he ducked and rolled just as the ground where he had been standing was violently smashed in by a tether of H.H.’s own. His was not the neat black weave of Daud’s tether – H.H.'s was wiry, twisted and unstable. Daud could see that while it carried one hell of a wallop, H.H. didn’t seem to have much control over its aim. Performed correctly, no dodging or ducking would result in avoiding a Void tether. No, H.H. had clearly missed. Daud made note of this and allowed his breathing to slow, preparing to allow his blood thirst to take over. H.H. was walking toward him now, with the same nonchalant pace, and the same unsettling smile stretching his face. H.H. was bleeding from his ears now, and a trickle had started out of his nose. As H.H. reached dreamily up to run his fingers through the blood under his nose and suck his bloody fingers into his mouth, Daud saw a mark on his hand. It was on his _right_ hand, and the shape was not that of the Outsider’s.

Daud inched back slowly, sending out a thought to Billie _blow his brains out Lurk_ as he drew H.H. closer to himself and further away from Billie. To Daud’s horror, H.H. simply smiled wider waving his finger in a ‘naughty child’ gesture to Daud and then quick as lightning, H.H. turned on Billie only to find her gone. Daud called to Thomas _now, over here_ and out of the corner of his vision could see Thomas sneaking his way over. _far enough, stop, wait_ and Thomas did, holding his position. Daud watched H.H. as he looked left and right, whipping his head around with an inhuman quickness. H.H. seemed to catch sight of Billie, and before Daud could send a tether to stop him – H.H. had blinked away. Daud looked around, gesturing forth his Void Gaze. He could see Billie – she had scaled one of the tall jags of castle wall and sat perched quietly on top, perfectly still. H.H. blinked behind Daud and Daud turned just as he felt the first tingle of charged air on the back of his neck.

Daud jumped back, just avoiding H.H.’s clumsy swing at his head – Daud popped the top of his vial _now Thomas_ and as he flicked the entire vial into H.H.’s face, the ground around him came alive with a swarm of things that may have been plague rats at one time, but were black and rotted twisted abominations – limbs sprouting from random spots on their bodies, their eyes and mouths randomly placed on their bodies, sometimes doubled or tripled. The smell was worse than any weeper den he had ever encountered, the stench of infection and decomposition a living thing in the air above the swarm. Daud tried to blink away, but he got tangled in a web of fetid sticky fluid that had suddenly spiderwebbed all around him. He stumbled and lost his footing, and the swarm was on him.

Through the tortured squeaks and warbles of the swarm, he heard the rapid fire of Thomas’s pistol, and Billie screaming. The rat things were everywhere, all over him they began to _bite and bite and bite and bite_ and then the air around him exploded with light and ozone – what looked like a bolt of lightning creeping along the ground blew through the rats, each one exploding into rancid green mist. Another bolt, and the ground at his feet burst open and the air was filled with threads of melted sand – tiny shards of glass that nearly instantly burned off into steam, taking the last of the rat-things with them.

Daud sat up, and patted himself down – he was ok, and hadn’t suffered more than a few dozen bites. He had busted open his old scar again at the temple but it wasn't anything a few stitches couldn't take care of. He looked over at Thomas standing over what was left of H.H.’s body. Half the clip had blown H.H.’s head out, and the rest of the clip had sent his guts flying out through the front of his body. Most of his head was gone, and the poison Daud had thrown at him had eaten into his face and the skin had melted, run and fused with the runlets of brain that were blown through it. The ground was slick with gobbets of runny unidentifiable skin and muscle - hair, shards of bone and pieces of teeth slowly settling into the still-melting ooze. Thomas wasn’t looking at the bloody ruin of H.H.’s remains though; he was gaping up in shock at Billie.

Daud looked up, and dimly saw her standing on the chunk of wall. The clouds came alive with lightning at that moment and he saw her silhouetted against the stormy sky. Her fist was clenched, and without warning she jumped. The impact from that height should have sheared her shinbones in two, but she landed lightly in a crouch, stood and walked over to Daud and Thomas.

Thomas had seen the bolts of lightning pouring out of Billie’s hand. His mind was blank with shock as she walked up, turned her hand over and showed them her palm. In her palm was burned a series of what looked like small concentric rings – the skin had puffed, blistered pink in some spots and looked painful, but it didn’t seem to hurt her. Daud gently took her hand, studying the mark burned into her palm. _You did this?_ _Yes, Daud._ Billie’s inflection was flat, and she seemed to be far away in her mind, and did not have much else to say. 

They stepped away from H.H.’s corpse and walked toward the cliff’s edge where the three of them stood and looked out over the storm-churned water. Thomas seemed to have gotten his wits back about him, and spoke first. “You didn’t know, did you.” Daud continued looking out over the water. “No.” He turned to Thomas and said that if had known, he would not have brought them out here. There was not much more to say, and they headed back toward the road. There wasn’t enough left of H.H. to worry about hiding, so they kicked a little dirt and rubble over the bloody spread of his body and headed back to Stridside. Daud told them to prepare for a long night, as he had much to discuss with them.

**************

After the Whalers had turned the bend out of sight down the road, Rose stepped from the blackness cloaking the inside of the ruins, and approached the pile of mess that had been H.H. She stood over him, and began making circular gestures above him, her voice churring and clicking in rhythmic inhuman bursts. Ripples of greenish energy coalesced around the corpse like malignant fairy-fire, spreading out until it found all of the various bits and pieces of the body. The ripples of energy began to contract back in, dredging the dirt for every drop of blood and compiling the matter into a thick runny pile. Slowly, the matter began to take a rough form, bits of bone crunching back into place – a mosaic skeleton growing from the ground up. The wet bits of gut and fluid and fat slithered up the bones, forming a bag of skin that first bloated with the thick liquid strings of muscle and gut and then smoothed out and lengthened as the body continued to form. The spine grew out of the trunk of the newly formed body like a ragged sapling, and from the top of the spine a soft bubble of cartilage and bone swelled, shifted and hardened into a skull. The bag of skin continued to creep up, filling itself back up – organs re-forming and packing neatly back in place. The thick fluid separated, roping itself into bands of muscle around the skull, and yellow chunks of fatty tissue swelled and filled out the face. The skin grew up around the mouth, leaving lips and a tongue behind – bits of teeth embedded themselves into the soft new gums, and took root – growing straight, white and even. The nose filled in, sculpted into shape and the eyes grew and filled the sockets in the skull. Eyelids formed and closed over the eyes and the head slumped forward with the weight of the brain matter swelling to fill the skull. The skin bag reached the top, hair extruding from the forming follicles, and then finally snapped shut with neat _pop_ at the crown of the head. H.H. opened his eyes, and ran his hands through his hair. He stood naked and pale, looked down at himself, and patted his various parts feeling that everything was in place. He looked up at Rose, smiled and winked. “Thanks, darlin."


	55. Lib makes for the 'Wilds

Lib hadn’t been back in Baleton long before one of the ‘Wilds messengers came looking for her. She didn’t tire easily in general, but she had been worn out by the time she had walked back into town late last night. She had gotten soaked on the way back in the storm, and the heavy wet leathers she wore seemed to weigh more with each step she took. She slept in a little later than usual, up after the sun rather than before. She spent the first part of the morning with a thick warm mug of coffee in her hand, sipping and watching people come and go. She had been delighted to see Megan Foster walk in – she was always happy to see Megan when she brought the 'Wale into port, but today she was just too damned tired to do much more than nod a hello. Megan nodded back, evidently not having much to say either. Lib made a note to catch up with her later, and have a drink. 

The day passed without incident, and Lib was looking forward to hitting her bunk hard, and putting in a hard night’s work of nothing but sleep. The sun was just past the midpoint of the day in the sky when the girl from the ‘Wilds came to her tugging on her jacket. The ‘Wilds folk called her Hammer – and this girl did so as well, her words rushing out in a tumbled mix of ‘Wilds and Commons. Lib didn’t quite understand what was going on, just that she needed to make haste to the Elder Woman’s lodge and bring large(?) clothes and nourishing food for the girl who had been staying in the shack. The only thing Lib could think of is that the old oil lamp must have blown and Lily ended up getting burned – large clothes were probably for wearing over bandages and nourishing food for her to heal more quickly. Lib’s heart was thumping nearly painfully in her chest thinking about Lily being hurt in such a way. Burns were merciless, particularly whale oil burns – nothing burned with quite the intensity of whale oil and once you were on the wrong end of even a handful’s worth of burning oil you were … well, fucked. It would burn down into the skin and continue right on past it, sometimes even through bone – liquefying whatever flesh that wasn’t carbonized on contact. Few survived whale oil burns, regardless of how minor they were. 

She asked the ‘Wilds girl to wait for her in the bar, and Lib went downstairs into the renovated cellar of the ‘Flask where her quarters were. She gathered a few of her shirts – the weave rough, but the fabric soft from years of wear and washing. She decided to see if Celia Pendleton over at the ‘Tog had any rag-bag pants she could give Lib that might be not so quite as large as Lib’s. Lib took the ‘Wilds girl with her, and explained to the girl that she was going to book a carriage and the girl could ride along with her. The girl was grateful – she wasn’t looking forward to the walk back after the series of sprints she took to get to Baleton. 

Lib made a stop at the ‘Tog, and Celia was more than happy to help out. Celia Wilde had always been a bit vazey at times in the way that women of that class tended to be, but she was also very gentle and kind. After one of her twins drowned – Bertie, it was - she was never quite the same. She remained gentle and kind, but she was quiet where she had been all giggles and silliness before. Lib didn’t need to explain much, just that there was a friend in need. That was all that Celia needed to hear, and they went through the clothes together until Lib saw a few pairs of larger breeches that would fit Lily, but wouldn’t be overly large. 

At the docks, Lib picked out whatever produce looked to be most nourishing to her but still would be something Lily would be likely to eat: apples, bananas, potatoes, leafy bresych, and a bag of meal. From the butcher stand, trimmed bones full of marrow for cawl and from the fresh catch stand, several perch. Once the produce and meats were wrapped and bagged, Lib and the ‘Wilds girl went to the carriage station and Lib booked an expedited carriage back the ‘Wilds. 

The ride over was uneventful, and while Lib was grateful that she didn’t have to make the long walk again she was nonetheless anxious and irritable. The driver was making a good clip, and the ride took much less time than Lib had expected. The ‘Wilds girl sat quietly, not offering much by way of conversation and nothing by way of answers about what had happened. The girl would shrug and look away when asked. This worried Lib even more. It must be pretty bad if even idle gossip had been struck silent. 

The driver continued into the main clearing, and continued past the shack. Lib couldn’t see any evidence of a fire there, so she was able to breathe a little more easily. Maybe Lily had fallen and injured herself? Hard to say out here in the ‘Wilds. There were any number of injuries to be had out here, from falls to nettlespore stings. Nettlespores weren’t plentiful in the ‘Wilds – but if one were unlucky enough to get close to one they’d catch a caustic spray that would blister and sting for some time after. 

When they made it to the Lodge, Lib paid the driver and the ‘Wilds girl jumped out and ran off back to wherever she had come from. It had been a while since Lib had been to the Lodge. The Lodge was where Lib had, for many years, accompanied the ladies of the ‘Flask as they needed and received care. The ladies of the Lodge were adept at the mixing of non-traditional medicines and their care was unparalleled. They took care of issues both minor and major – though in general, the care was for a particular need. The ladies of the Lodge provided the herbs and concoctions to prevent pregnancy, and should a girl fall pregnant – the Lodge would be where she would go to have a purge. A purge was not a pleasant experience by far, but the ladies were gentle, and afterward gave the remains of the infant a ritual burial. If a girl decided against a purge, she would willingly stay until the baby was born. More often than not, the baby would be taken in by the ‘Wilds folk and become one of them. It was fairly rare for a girl to keep the baby and bring it back to the ‘Flask. The ‘Flask was no place to raise a child – the last one who had, was Rose Everleigh. 

One of the ladies, Gwynda, if Lib remembered correctly - came out and greeted Lib, explaining that the girl was fine – but that the Elder woman wanted to talk to Lib first before looking in on the girl. Lib found this unusual, but agreed. Gwynda took the clothes, and then took the bags of food from Lib and stored them in the cold larder in the small cookhouse building next to the Lodge. They walked into the Lodge together, and the Elder woman was waiting for Lib in her big wicker and vine chair by the fire. Lib pulled up a chair, and the Elder woman motioned for Gwynda to bring Lib a drink. No, not tea – a _real_ drink. Gywenda brought Lib a mug of Flin and the Elder woman explained that Lib would certainly need the boost it would bring. Lib sipped the Flin carefully. There were few beverages that Lib couldn’t kill with a single shot, but Flin was not one of them. It was a single pot still whisky from the ‘Wilds, the recipe an old Imperial secret handed down from the families of the first Outlanders who settled the ‘Wilds generations ago. It was potent stuff, smooth going down with no unpleasant after-effects, but it would burn through the blood quickly sharpening the senses and imparting sensations of great strength. Lib wondered how many foolish men and women had tucked back a few shots of this, and then went out to try to do foolish superhuman things. A Flin did not a warrior make, though good luck telling that to someone who recently swallowed some down. Lib took her time, allowing each sip to boost her a step at a time. If something had happened to Lily, something bad, Lib didn’t want to be Flin-spinning when she found out about it. 

The Elder woman got right to the point. She told Lib what had happened – how some of the ‘Wilds folks had watched the girl walk in from Baleton with Lib, settling into the cabin and the next morning walked out of it in clothing burst at the seams, within weeks of giving birth – looking and smelling like she hadn’t bathed in months. She described the scene as it was described to her – the girl weak and wobbling out to the water pump, only to drink herself to vomiting and then gorging herself on the white clay that the water had uncovered. She stopped there to let Lib take it in. 

Lib was reeling – Lily, eating clay - and pregnant? Not only pregnant, but evidently hugely so. That would explain the large clothes and nourishing food. She could not understand how this was possible. Lily had certainly not _looked_ pregnant when she helped her get settled in. Lib was confused – had they perhaps gotten the wrong girl? The Elder woman explained that no, it was definitely the same girl. She suggested that Lib top off her Flin, because there was much that she needed to explain. 

The Elder woman lit a fragrant cigarette, and began telling Lib about what she had sensed inside the girl – the influence of the cythraul-hunleff - ‘the Outsider’ was prominent, along with an unknown force that was far more malignant. No, there was no ‘Wilds man involved, in fact the Elder woman had not been able to sense a father at all. Lib was thunderstruck – the Outsider, in Baleton? The Outsider was certainly heard of in Baleton, but never had his presence made itself known there as far as Lib knew. She tried to think of what this could mean. Had the Outsider come to Baleton and … no, the very idea of such a thing was ludicrous. The Outsider was many things, but she could not imagine a scenario where he would take a human woman in such a way. Could it be one of his ‘marked, then that did this? The Elder woman nodded, and agreed that a ‘marked one fathering a child would certainly explain the Void darkness found inside the child that Lily carried. She had no explanation for the other though. The Elder woman asked about Rose Everleigh, Lily’s mother – had she at any time had dealings with the Outsider, any strange dreams, odd men about? Lib had heard stories about Rose’s ‘man’ coming to take her away but after Rose had thrown herself from the lighthouse Lib figured that the ‘man’ must have been a figment of some sort of brain fever. Lib told her about Piero Joplin – rumored to have been in contact with the Outsider, staying in Baleton for a time for the lighthouse renovations, and how he had mentally and emotionally destroyed one of the girls – Cora Pearl. She recounted the dark whispers about profane goings on between the two, but that could have as easily been perversion as it could have been some doings of the Outsider. No, that didn’t seem connected to this. 

The Elder woman asked Lib if she knew who owned the shack that she had settled Lily into, and Lib had to admit that she did not. She hadn’t paid any particular attention to it in the past. It was a well-built and safe shelter, and that was her primary concern. The Elder woman told her that it was a ‘marked man who owned the shelter, and explained that she knew this from the protective Void aura around the shack – it had kept him hidden, and the shack private. Lib hadn’t felt anything unusual in or around the shack, but took the Elder woman’s word for it. The Elder woman may not have eyes, but she damned sure saw things that no common person could. What would a ‘marked one be doing in Baleton? Could this man be the one who fathered Lily’s child? It still didn’t explain how she went from not-pregnant to heavily pregnant in a night, though with the Void – anything could happen, Lib supposed. 

The Elder woman said that the girl had been talking about being ‘under the strid’ – now, the Elder woman knew that there was nothing under the strid besides various caverns and tunnels cut into the deep earth by the water. She speculated that the girl had been in the Void – which must have appeared to her mind in the form of the underground world she had heard tales of as a child. Lily had mentioned ‘frog-fish men’ in her delirium and while that sounded more like the inhabitants of the realm of the sleeping god of the ‘Wilds, nothing of that sort would happen there – and there was scant evidence of the sleeping god within this child. What she felt was a mere hint of the sleeping god, no more than one would expect to find in a child who likely had a ‘Wilds blood relative some time back. As for the girl's advanced pregnancy - there is no ‘time’ in the Void, explained the Elder woman. A moment in the Void could be years here, and in turn – a few hours here could be months there. The Elder woman paused to drag on her cigarette, chuffing out thick clouds of sweet smoke into the air. 

After a moment, the Elder woman asked Lib if she was ready to see the girl. They had exhausted the knowledge they had, and any further questions would need to be answered by the girl herself. Lib took a deep breath, and enforced her Flin-fortified will over her anger. The anger could wait – and it would. She would find out who was behind this – Outsider or not, and she would make them pay, with interest - with both heads of her sleggja. Right now, it was time to make sure Lily was going to be ok.

Lib stepped cautiously into the area of the Lodge that had been set aside with tall screens for privacy. The Elder woman stepped between the screens first, and Lib stepped in after her. Lib was not prepared for seeing Lily like this. Her hair was neatly shorn close to her head, and her face was puffed up in the way that signaled that she would be birthing within a few weeks. Her lips were swollen, her cheeks rosy and rounded. Her chest rose in ample gentle mounds under the cover, and her belly stood high and round. Lib found it hard to look at her this way. The Elder woman gently stroked Lily’s forehead, bringing her awake. 

Lily’s eyes first cracked, and then flew open when she saw Lib, and she burst into hysterical tears. Lib sat down at her bedside, and held her, saying nothing while the girl cried herself out. Lily’s body was radiating a sweaty heat, but she didn’t feel feverish and didn’t appear to be injured in any way. Lib looked up at the Elder woman, who merely nodded. 

When Lily finally cried herself out, she sat back and shifted herself around until she was sitting beside Lib on the bed. She looked miserable, and Lib reached over and rubbed the scrub of Lily’s hair the way she used to do when Lily was little. Lib asked her if she knew what was happening to her, and Lily nodded. She sniffled a bit, wiping her nose with her sleeve and asked for some water. Cold water. The Elder woman stood and left the small screened-in room to send Gwynda out to the pump to draw a jug of cold water. 

When the Elder woman left, Lib asked Lily if she was ready to talk about it – and Lily was.


	56. Part 6: The Time Has Come The Whaler Said, To Talk of Many Things

The walk back to Stridside was quiet. Usually after a kill, there would be an electric thrill in the air directly afterward shared through the Whalers, followed by a slow decline into fatigue. This night though – with the smell of H.H.’s insides still fresh in their noses, the air was flat and dead and the Whalers walked back to Baleton saying little. The days of blinking over the rooftops of Dunwall amidst eldritch battles had been long behind them. Thomas hadn’t fired a pistol since he left Dunwall for good years ago – the meat of his palm was still throbbing from the kick of the clockwork pistol, and while he hadn’t taken a life in long time he found that it had been as natural as it had in his last days as a Whaler long ago. H.H. was no great loss to anyone, he reckoned and even if he had been - at the moment Thomas pulled the trigger, he wouldn’t have cared. His mind, his ethics, all that he thought he had become in the years since leaving Dunwall clicked neatly back into the dark place of his mind where he kept his past. It fit seamlessly, and Thomas wondered if perhaps he had never really changed at all. It both thrilled and depressed him to consider it. 

Billie was well aware of the unspoken question that hung in the air between them, but had no answers. She had no explanation for what had happened up at the ruins. She had found to her delight that her old instincts were still intact, even with missing an arm and an eye. In her Whaler days, Billie had been a master of deflecting the enemy. Someone could be walking directly at her, and she would find a way to nearly melt from their vision just prior to blinking either away to safety, or behind them to move in for the kill. Billie always preferred taking her kills from behind. There were few moments more exciting to her than to inch slowly up on a target completely unseen, and take their life with a swift clean slide of her blade across the throat. Her cuts were always clean, deep and fatal. She had seen kills go wrong, the target staggering and gasping wetly through the ragged edges of an imprecise cut to the throat, or spouting blood from a survivable gouge to the gut – their death having to be brought on more swiftly by a bullet to the head. She had only had to use her pistol a number of times during her Whaler days – never for a dirty kill like that though. She prided herself on efficient clean kills. There was no pride in dirty kills, not for her anyway. As efficient as her kills were, she was never able to reach the level of Daud. Daud had excelled at minimalist assassination techniques. He could take out multiple targets and enemies with no more than two lunges using only the tip of his blade. His drop kills were precise as well – he could fall from any height, his target dead before Daud’s feet touched the ground. Sometimes he’d drop a kill, and immediately blink off like a raven disappearing into the darkness, his feet never touching the ground at all. Tonight she had seen none of that - not from Daud, not from Thomas and not from herself. While they had fallen into familiar practice, it was clear that familiarity did not lead to precision.

Billie kept these thoughts to herself. She was sure that Daud and Thomas were thinking along the same lines, and she left them to their thoughts as they left her to hers. There would be plenty to talk about once they got back. There was clearly more to the story than Daud had let on, and Billie and Thomas were anxious to figure out what it was. Neither had anticipated what had happened. Both had spent many years researching leads on Daud’s whereabouts – including information on various people who were looking for Daud for whatever reason. Nothing that either had found quite explained what happened at the castle ruins. This spoke of something larger than a simple matter of collecting on the going rate of Whaler heads. 

When they got back to Stridside, Daud let them in and closed the door behind them – locking the door, and turning the mechanism in his sign on the door so that it read ‘Closed for the Day’. After the events of the evening, no one could blame him for not wanting to conduct regular business. For a day or so, anyway. 

They made their way down to the basement, loosening their jackets and clothes – making themselves comfortable for what was sure to be an exhaustive exit interview. Daud had always started and ended each job with an entrance and exit interview with his Whalers. Standing at his pinboard stuck with various diagrams, maps and likenesses of the target – the Whalers on that particular job would discuss the target, the risks, the benefits and any unforeseen incidents from which to make alternate plans or escape routes. No job was started without complete inventory checks and alternate plans and routes. Very rarely had a job not gone as planned – and even those that didn’t went smoothly with the alternative plans. The exit interviews were similar. There would be a thorough review, followed by a supply inventory and tying up any loose ends that may have frayed during the course of the job. This night was no different, with the obvious exception of the pinboard. That was no doubt charcoal or rotted slivers somewhere at the bottom of a landfill. Billie wondered if there were still bits and pieces of those last target images stuck to the wood as it rotted gently away. 

Daud had them check their weapons and charms and asked them to keep them on their persons for now. Whatever they were up against left no room for walking about unarmed. Daud started the exit interview by asking each for any input, no matter how farfetched that they may have found during the past years in relation to the Void. 

Billie started with the events of the coup in 1852, explaining in some detail how Delilah had managed to come back from the Void and as it had turned out, the night she lost her arm and her eye was the night that Delilah broke through though Billie hadn’t known it at the time. She had gotten into a tangle with the Grand Guard while looking for her friend Aramis Stilton – who, as she found out later had gone insane – tipped over the edge during the events of the séance at his manor. She wasn’t sure exactly what had become of him - she was never able to get a straight answer. An interesting thing she had picked up in the Dust District while scouting in Karnaca during the coup, was that a Howler named Paolo had been rumored to possess Void powers. She heard stories about him bursting into rats when attacked, and upon further investigating had found out that his powers came not from the Void, but by proxy through a hand of a marked one. She was certain it was the hand of Granny Rags and Daud agreed. 

Daud had tolerated a number of encounters with Granny Rags on his search for the Outsider. For a time he would visit her to watch her make charms and occasionally she would share them with Daud. Daud shuddered a little thinking of the sensation that came over him whenever he held one of her runes or bonecharms – a subtle negative pressure that flitted around inside of him and extruded some tiny part of himself into Granny Rags. It was a nasty invasive sensation but he tolerated it – his thirst for the Void far outweighing his discomfort. He had little doubt she was long dead, and given Paulo’s rumored abilities it did make sense that his hand charm had once been firmly attached to Granny Rags' person. How Paolo managed to find her and dig her up out of whatever hole she was rotting in was anybody’s best guess. 

After a bit more discussion about the coup, they determined that it was not likely that there was any connection to any of those events and the ones happening in Baleton. Thomas had followed the events of the coup, but outside the stories of the ‘Crown Killer’ and more romping about of ‘a black magic masked assassin’ there was little else for him to contribute. They briefly discussed how the coup was overturned. Stories had been whispered over the past few years that Delilah had been cast back into the Void by the ‘masked assassin’, thrown into one of her own paintings and sealed there forever. They all cut eyes and shook their heads at that last bit – Daud couldn’t quite understand why Delilah, who managed to do the unthinkable – _escape the Void_ , would fuck it up so spectacularly by pulling the same stunt which had clearly failed the last time she tried it.

Thomas had found out some interesting things of his own over the past few years – a few of which he had already shared with Mr. Merrock – and Daud remembered, but for the sake of the exit interview asked for a summary of his findings. Thomas had been looking into a shadowy group of former Whalers that seemed to be coalescing into a cult of sorts in Dunwall, watching from afar through his network as they began branching out and absorbing members from other factions or individuals who otherwise captured their attention. They had begun forming not long after the Tyvian man who tried to resurrect the Whalers disappeared. Thomas did not like the implications, but understood. There were those who, once having been touched by the Void would stop at nothing to taste it again. He had heard stories of people who would carve sigils into themselves with whatever bits and pieces of dark charms they could find, or even go so far as to consume them in some way or other. Evidently this Tyvian man had done something similar from what scant details he was able to find out. He had a mark, but it was not given by the Outsider – he evidently had carved it into his hand using some artifact he had found, that was rumored to be directly connected to the Outsider in some way. Daud was aware that the Tyvian had been looking for him, and failing to find him - had taken to looking for Billie and Thomas instead and had ended up in Dunwall. His legacy was this dark cult - these so-called 'Eyeless Ones', evidently dedicated to seeking out those touched by the Void and absorbing them into their flock. They were among the number of other people actively searching for Daud, as Thomas had reported to Mr. Merrock. 

Daud thought that there may be some connection there and to the events here in Baleton – there was a similarity there in how H.H. was ‘marked’. Billie and Thomas had not been able to see a mark, and Daud described its unusual nature – how it was on his _right_ hand and did not have quite the same shape as the Outsider’s mark. If there was a connection, it was not a particularly strong one given the circumstances. The 'Eyeless Ones' were obsessed with the Outsider, and what was happening here in Baleton seemed to be something... else, something not quite the work of the Outsider. What had happened with Billie was something that Daud had not seen in all of his years in his dealings with other marked ones and with the Outsider. Daud took a closer look at Billie's palm, and asked Thomas if he could see what was there. Thomas could see it clearly - in her palm was what looked to be a terrible burn in a pattern of roughly concentric rings. Her skin was puffed and angry-looking, red and black on her pale palm and some of the larger blisters had burst and begun to weep. There was no pain, but Billie didn't care for the look of it - she could see the first faint threads of infection beginning to streak out from the wound, though it was far too fresh to be infected this early in.

She described what happened up at the castle ruin. She had seen H.H. send forth a dark swarm of something that she couldn't see clearly but knew that it must have been plague rats. She had seen up close and personal what a swarm of regular plague rats could do to a person, and knew that these rats summoned from the Void would do far worse things - and at a far faster pace. All that had been in her mind at the moment the lightning tore through her was that Daud was going to die, and that she could not allow that. A complete silence had settled over her, and she felt the air go still and cold - bone chilling cold from the inside out, and the hairs stood up all over her body much the same as it did whenever someone blinked near her, or when she got just a little too close to a Wall of Light. She felt a thrumming vibration throughout her body as her vision filled with a deep purple tinge - she did not feel pain, but she did feel something rush through her and then out of her hand like water that was both boiling hot and freezing cold at the same time. She saw a flash of light nearly unbearably bright, and then something that looked like ball lightning on the ground creeping toward Daud - consuming the rats and rendering them into blasts of greenish mist. By the time her mind caught up to what was happening, she realized what it had been - somehow raw electricity from the storm had been milked from the sky and sent through her in a concentrated blast, tearing out of her palm and cauterizing it as it flowed out. She held out her palm in wonder, holding her hand out in front of her and gestured as she had so many times before wondering... no. Thomas winced, and then relaxed when it became clear that the basement wasn't going to explode with lightning. Daud asked her what she felt just then when she gestured, and Billie answered truthfully 'nothing'. Daud took another look at her palm to see if anything had changed with the gesture, but it had not. Daud got an idea to see what would happen if she stepped into the lab - he knew now that whatever that juncture was, it seemed to be some sort of leaking point from the Void. They stepped into the lab, and Billie cautiously stretched her hand out into the corner on the right. Other than the same rush of energy she had felt before, there was nothing else. The mark remained just as it was. Daud had been convinced that there would be some kind of reaction and was puzzled. They decided that over the next few days they would further explore this 'leak' or whatever it was but for now it was time to set another plan. 

They continued to talk throughout the rest of the night as the sky lightened to morning, forming a plan to hunt down this woman Rose. Even though H.H. was gone, Rose still presented a danger to them and to Lily. Daud hadn’t noticed a mark on Rose, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t touched in some other way. Though a plan was formed, there was still a ways to go before finalizing it. They decided that Thomas would go talk to Cholly Shanks, and find out anything further he could about H.H. and whatever involvements he may have had – and certainly Lottie may have some information about Rose as well. Daud would talk to Lib Fury and see if she had seen or heard anything at the ‘Flask that might be helpful. Billie offered to go along with Daud, and let him know that in Baleton – she was known as Meagan Foster so they both would have to play it carefully. She was not keen to be known as Billie Lurk again. While they were out, they would stop by Anne Bonny's and see to getting Billie's hand taken care of. 

The conversation seemed to be drawing to a close, and Daud said that there were a few more things that would need to be considered before firming up the plan. He said that he had information of his own to add that would be pertinent, and then began telling his story.

Billie and Thomas listened at first with interest as he started with how he met Lily, and took her in. He explained that she had been a ‘Rat, and it had all started when he caught her trying to cut his purse out in front of his store one morning. The idea of anyone trying to rob Daud in such a mundane way was amusing to Billie and Thomas, but as his story unfolded the amusement turned slowly to disbelief and horror. He relayed the possession in as much detail as he could remember, leaving out nothing. He talked about what it felt like to be send cowering inside his own head, watching helplessly as his body, and that of Lily’s was used in some grotesque experimental way. He described the feelings he had – the relentless waves of bloodlust washing over him, the possession driving him forward with the only passion that existed within him, in lieu of ordinary human lust and passion. Daud sat with his elbows on his knees, his hands limply intertwined and hanging down between them and his voice became more monotone as the story developed. He did not look at Billie or Thomas as he talked. Billie and Thomas were deeply uncomfortable hearing about this act of blood and pain, and when he described how it felt when the bond tore from him – Billie stood and walked a few feet away, leaning on the wall of the basement looking down. Thomas leaned forward himself, looking down at the floor unable to say anything. Neither had thought it possible that Daud could be rendered so helpless in such a way and used for an act that was directly in opposition to the man they knew him to be.

They had always known that Daud was not a particularly passionate man – neither could think of a single instance where he had expressed interest in intimate dealings, nor could either think of a time where he had interacted with women – or men for that matter, in such a way. There had been an unspoken rule that this sort of interaction would not be tolerated amongst the ranks of the Whalers – opening oneself up to that kind of emotional and physical vulnerability with a member of the ranks was not a good idea when so much could go wrong with it, and in turn could damage the tight network of bonds that existed between them. If a Whaler wanted that kind of interaction, well – the Golden Cat was not that far away, and barring that there was always some person or other who held enough of a dark obsession with their ilk that sex was easy enough to find. 

Daud told them about the aftermath – how he had been woken up fully clothed on the floor of his room by Lily, who was also fully clothed, neither of them showing any evidence of what had happened. Lily didn’t seem to have any recollection of the act until the night he ran into Rose at the ‘Flask, the same night that he had ended up in Anne Bonny’s make-do infirmary. It was the night he called to Billie and Thomas evidently, though he still couldn’t quite remember the events clearly. He did remember that Rose had said something to him, but he couldn’t quite access the part of his memory where it was evidently locked. He said when he got home that morning, Lily was gone. She had left a note saying that she knew who he was and what he had done to her. The only person who could have told her who he was would have been H.H. He didn’t want to think about her remembering what he had done to her – when he did, his mind swerved to a violent anger at himself for being weak, for being used against his will. In a deeper part of his mind, he kept locked deep away the memory of what it felt like to break Lily open and tear her apart from the inside – like slipping into Jessamine, that final yield of the flesh of her belly first dimpling and then with a tangible ‘pop’ her guts opening themselves to him – the sharp copper smell of her blood running hotly over his fist. No. No. 

He closed his eyes, breathing in deeply and then out again – willing away the bloodlust before it could rise out of control inside of him. He felt faint, ill. No. He was infected by this, whatever this thing was – it had left a residue inside of him. Billie and Thomas were looking at him with alarm. He was usually very good at cloaking his thoughts but he wasn’t sure this time that it had worked. He hoped it had. He did not want them touched by this corruption inside of him.

He forced himself to turn his mind toward cold logic - to how else Lily could have found out who he was – he could think of another possibility – that the Outsider had gotten to her through a dream, but he didn’t want to think in that direction quite yet. He told Billie and Thomas that he was certain that Lily had taken off to his shack in the ‘Wilds that he used to live in and continued to maintain even to this day – for what reason, he wasn’t sure. He supposed some part of him would always want a hidden place to go to when the time came for it. It was his hope that he would be able to figure out what was going on, put a stop to it and then make amends with Lily – if such a thing were even possible at this point. Daud’s story came to a close, and Billie and Thomas were owl-eyed and silent. Whatever was going on, it was far beyond anything they had imagined. Thomas let out a long slow breath, and Billie turned from where she was leaning with her good arm, and then settled with her back to the wall – one knee up, supporting her as she leaned against it. Daud was clearly mired in something far worse than he had been in those last days they had spent with him in Dunwall. 

Billie was lost in her own dark private thoughts, and was caught off guard by a sudden rising anger – an anger that was driven by something that she thought was long gone, dead and cold. Her thoughts got the best of her, and Daud looked sharply up at her – his eyes flashing with outraged disbelief. Something came over Billie then, something that she couldn’t explain. Something from long ago, in a different place and time, bubbled up from forgotten corners of her mind and Billie began smiling coldly – a small mean smirk, and her face carried a shadow of malice. She opened her mouth, and began to speak.


	57. Lily speaks of many things

When Lily started speaking, Lib was not sure what to make of what she was hearing – and realized that when she and Lily sat at Mr. Merrock’s table talking before they took off for the 'Wilds, there was some pretty critical information that Lily had failed to mention that night. Lily started with the dreams, and how she had been pulled under the strid and led on a path in the world underneath – journeying toward a tower and then climbing it ultimately to witness unspeakable acts on the tower's roof between a strange red-haired woman and a man with the head of a wolf.

The Elder woman asked Lily to describe as much as she could from what she remembered from being under the strid, and the Elder woman nodded silently as Lily described the frog-fish men, the murky glowing water and the various slimy growths large and small. The Elder woman’s eyebrows rose when she described the various building as best she could – she remembered them being different shapes every time she looked at them, often different shapes at the same time if such a thing were even possible. She talked about the tower with the rough-hewn sandy stone, and the inky black windows. There were shadows all around her, cold shadows that moved and darted just out of the corners of her vision. Lily said that each time she dreamed, she would find herself in continuation of the previous one.

The Elder woman seemed especially interested in the details of the world under the strid, but as Lily began describing in detail what she saw of the red-haired woman and the wolf-man the Elder woman looked confused, and then increasingly concerned. As she had suspected, Lily had somehow been pulled into the realm of the sleeping god – but what she was describing at the top of the tower did not belong there, _at all._ Lily talked about her subsequent dreams, finding the large carved circle with the spokes of brightly glowing sigils radiating from it and seeing strange objects – charms of some kind fitted into the various junctures and shapes carved into the top of the tower. She talked about what happened when the red-haired woman tried to talk to her – how her voice had sounded like some kind of buzzing, like a swarm of insects all at once.

The Elder woman’s look of confusion slowly hardened to anger as she heard more of the story. What Lily was describing was blasphemous beyond the Elder woman’s imagination. No sleeping god, nor any proxy or entity of the sleeping gods would dare mark another's realm and perform these rituals in such a way - it was unthinkable to consider. When Lily described the voice of the woman, the Elder woman knew then that the red-haired woman was an interdimensional being, and though magic circles and charms were usually the work of proxies of the Outsider, it certainly was not the Outsider - his form was male and had been for thousands of years. This red-haired woman must be the dark ‘other’ that she sensed inside the child nestled inside Lily. The Elder woman thought about the sensation of that dark thing skittering up the psychic threads she had sent down into the child - she spat and gestured a protective sigil in the air, her mouth twisting in disgust and anger. Lily was carrying an unspeakable thing – a human child infused with at least two entities that were diametrically opposed, and the whisper of the sleeping god added a third, equally incompatible element. This child would be born into the world bearing the abilities of those opposing gods, representing in one body equal parts of the others’ enemies.

The Elder woman sat back in her chair giving no voice to her concerns or fears. This child should not be allowed to live, but she dared not suggest so – much less act on her thoughts. She could not kill one bearing even a shadow of the sleeping god, and knew that she would be unable to kill the child even if there were no hint of the sleeping god. The interdimensional nature of those three gods was in every particle of this child’s being, and an interdimensional being could not be killed by a dimensional one regardless of how powerful they may be. No strength, will or magic wielded by any human would be able to kill this child. Should anyone try, the powers of the gods within this child would be completely at the whim of its infantile rage as the child fought to protect itself. Rage, sadness, love, hate – all of the instability of these emotions rendered incomprehensibly illogical through the filter of a child’s brain. Who, _what_ could have done such a horrific thing – created this blasphemous chimaera?

Lily continued through the events of her last dream under the strid – how the atmosphere had seemed different, and how her brain had been lulled into a sort of dull complacency. She described the girl Deidre, and talked a little about how Deidre said she had been sent by the Outsider to meet Lily. She also talked a little about Deidre’s motivations – how she had made a deal to be able to see someone named ‘Billie’ again in exchange for helping Lily. Lib didn’t know a Billie or a Deidre, but was aware of the nature of deals with devils – she wasn’t sure how or why Lily was involved, however. The Elder woman sat in shocked silence - she was astonished that not only one entity had dared cross into the sleeping god's realm, but Ctoggha - the Outsider had as well by sending a proxy? Had he not learned anything from the _last_ time he crossed paths with the sleeping god?! Lily continued to talk and explained how she had been woken up by Deidre and that is when she realized that she was carrying a child. Lib asked Lily if she had any idea who it could have been that fathered the child and Lily said that she did - she had been told in a dream, but it made no sense.

As Lib and the Elder woman listened, Lily described a dream where she was a little girl with her mother again. Lib leaned forward, greatly interested – she knew Lily had no memory of her mother and was curious as to what Lily saw. Lily described the unusual color of her hair - fiery orange sparks in her copper-colored hair, the faint smell of her perfume and cigarettes and Lib felt a twinge of sadness in her heart. Yes, that was Rose Everleigh – so evidently in some part of the girl’s mind she did have memories of her mother hidden away. As Lily continued the dream, describing how her mother had changed to the red-haired woman the Elder woman stopped her and asked specific questions – was this red-haired woman similar to her mother? Lily had answered yes, at first – but then her eyes had become black holes, and she carried a smell that had become increasingly worse as she told Lily a story.

The woman had been wearing a white gown which Lily described in some detail as the woman had been wearing it during the incident with the Wolf-man as well, and she remembered that the woman’s feet were bare and dirty. Lib felt her heart drop as she heard more details about the white gown. Rose Everleigh had shown Lib and the ladies at the 'Flask that gown on a number of occasions – it was to be her wedding dress, when she married the man who was coming to Baleton to take her and Lily away to a new life. They all believed it at the time – but after Rose Everleigh died, many felt that the dark-eyed man had been a figment of Rose’s imagination – false hope and wishful thinking brought to life in the dreams and delusions of poor Rose. No one at the ‘Flask wanted Rose’s belongings after she died in such a terrible way, so Ms. Abernathy had given all of the clothing items to William Wilde to resell at the ‘Tog, and the other items to Michael Vehkbride for resale at the General Merch. Eventually all of Rose Everleigh’s items trickled out of Baleton, borne away by tourists and travelers from all over the Isles.

Lily told the story that the red-haired woman had told to her in the dream. The story had been about a man with the heart of a wolf, who had once been the best assassin in the entire world. He had been cursed when he assassinated the _queen?, Empress?_ , and to redeem himself had saved her daughter, the princess, from an evil witch. The curse hadn’t lifted so the man tried to kill the wolf in his heart hoping the curse would fade away, and for many years lived as if the wolf had indeed died. The man found a girl, and took the girl in and in time the wolf awoke again, the man had given the girl something to make her leave her body and the man had used the girl’s body in terrible ways.

The red-haired woman had told her that the Wolf-man’s name was Daud - and that he was in fact Mr. Merrock. She saw Lib start to say something but LIly stopped her, and continued. She said that the red-haired woman had somehow forced a memory of Mr. Merrock, or Daud – if that was truly his name, on top of her hurting her. It had been _Lily_ rutting with him at the top of the tower, but she was not sure if she could trust that memory even as real as it had seemed. Lily said that she had not had any memory of having done these things prior to the dream, and that surely she would remember if she had rutted with someone, and particularly if it had been him.

The Elder woman cleared her throat and said that she believed her, and she put a hand on Lib’s shoulder to calm her down. Lib was incandescently angry – she could not believe that Hearne Merrock would drug and rape an evidently hallucinating Lily, but if it turned out that he was indeed the Assassin Daud – then all bets were off. She had heard all kinds of stories in her time about Daud, and while rape had never been involved – she could not rule out him deciding that there was a first time for everything, and taking Lily for himself. The Elder woman told Lily and Lib both that when the ladies of the Lodge had taken Lily in, and put her to sleep to clean her up the Elder woman had done a routine exam on her – just as she did with every pregnant woman, and she had found that Lily was in fact, intact. Lily wasn’t sure what that meant, but as the Elder woman described what that meant, Lily blushed deeply and understood. She did not understand how she could be pregnant – but knew it had something to do with what she had seen on the top of the tower. Lib sat back with a dazed look of confusion on her face. How? If Lily was intact – if she had never… then how was she pregnant?

The Elder woman told them that from all she had been told, it appeared that the red-haired woman – or rather the entity wearing the red-haired woman as a skin, had used itself as a proxy for Lily’s body and had taken the ‘wolf-man’ to rut. The Elder woman did not say so, but she knew that the red-haired woman was in some part Lily's mother - whatever had remained of Lily's mother had likely been protecting Lily as best as she could by influencing the entity in some subtle way to make this act a proxy and not a direct possession using Lily's physical body. She wondered what the man had experienced – had he seen things the same way? Had he seen Lily underneath him, or had he seen the red-haired woman? The red-haired woman had taken from the man, and from itself – and had created a seed to root in the girl’s womb by proxy. So, yes – Lily was in fact pregnant, and it appeared that Hearne Merrock had fathered the child – in a sense.

On the most technical level, Merrock – or Daud, had not actually rutted the girl – though the child would carry him within its blood, just as any child conceived naturally would have. Lily at first looked confused, and then relieved insofar as she was able to feel relief. She had not wanted to consider that Mr. Merrock would hurt her that way. She had no idea what would happen now – what would he say? What would they do from here? Would they raise the child? She couldn’t even imagine a future from here, what it would look like.

Some of the fire had left Lib’s eyes. She had not wanted to consider this either. Hearne had been a friend, or something like it – for years. She tried to imagine him as Daud, and wasn’t quite able to – perhaps he was, and had simply buried all that Daud had been and left it somewhere in his past. She would address that when the time came. She had no idea how to address Lily’s pregnancy with him. Hearne had always been protective of Lily, and Lib had felt comfortable with her staying there with him in his home. She had never once seen or picked up on anything that would suggest that he would have hurt her in such a way. Perhaps there was a way to make this a civil discussion after all, without the use of the sleggja.

The Elder woman turned her thoughts inward, considering all that she had heard carefully. If Hearne Merrock was the Assassin Daud, then that would explain why the Elder woman felt Ctoggha, the Outsider - inside the child. The nature of the rut explained as well why the Elder woman had felt no father. The shack in the ‘Wilds belonged to a marked one, and since Hearne Merrock lived right down the road it was not a stretch to make the connection given this other information.

There were only a handful of weeks left before the child would be born. The Elder woman saw no reason to share this with Lily quite yet, but she wondered what this child would look like. Would it look human? Would it carry the warped and twisted shapes in its form that were characteristic of the interdimensionals? The Elder woman shuddered inside to think of what the child might look like having its very creation interpreted through interdimensional understanding of what humans were. She had seen such horrific creatures in her visions, proxies created by the sleeping gods that carried only the barest suggestion of human features mixed in with horrors that human eyes could not comprehend, and would drive even the most strong-willed of humans directly into insanity upon a single glance of the eldritch features. What would happen when this child delivered - its hour of birth come at last, the Elder woman did not know. She reached inside, deep into her mind for answers – guidance from the sleeping god, and found only stony indifferent silence.


	58. In Which Billie and Daud have a difficult conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **“So I find words I never thought to speak**   
>  **In streets I never thought I should revisit**   
>  **When I left my body on a distant shore.”**   
>  _― T.S. Eliot_
> 
> **… Daud was a challenging mentor, father figure, maybe a complex unresolved love interest?**   
>  _\- Harvey Smith, Co-creative Director at Arkane Studios_

“Well, that’s a hell of an excuse for fucking the hired help. I hope you at least tipped her.” Daud glared up at Billie, the naked grief in his face hardening to cold outrage. Billie didn’t leave it alone, though. “Tell me Daud, was it a big _tip_? Did she like it?” Thomas flushed deeply, looking down at his shoes. He did not like where this was going. Billie had always had more leeway with Daud. She would tease him with jabs and mild innuendo in ways that the other Whalers would have not have dared. Daud had tolerated it, and some among them thought perhaps on some level he enjoyed it – but this? Thomas couldn’t imagine anyone saying such a thing to him – then, _or_ now – particularly after Daud had just opened himself up, showing a vulnerability in ways that neither had ever seen or thought possible. Why was Billie doing this?

Billie’s chin was tilted up, and her smile was thin, cold and hard. Thomas started to speak, but Daud was out of his chair in a flash, blinking straight into Billie and pinning her head against the wall with his forearm to her throat. His voice was raw - gravel and shrapnel “WHY.” Billie stood still staring defiantly at him, the only thing giving away her surprise the loud huff of breath in and out of her nose. Daud held her pinned for a moment, grateful he did not have his blade. In that moment, if he had his blade, he would have gutted her and twisted the blade a few times for good measure. He looked into her eye - searching her for the answer to his question, and for a split second thought he saw a thread of black worming through her iris. He blinked hard, no. no. When he opened his eyes again, it was just Billie's eye - no black thread.

“Why, Billie?” He cleared his mind and listened to her unspoken answer – a jumble of thought and emotion, tangles of regret and sadness, and the red that had creeped into the corners of his vision slowly began receding. He closed his eyes, took his arm from Billie’s throat and stepped back. Thomas sighed in relief – he was convinced that Daud was going to kill her with his bare hands. Daud and Billie were looking at each other, his arms crossed – her rubbing her throat, neither backing down. Thomas decided that it was a great time for a drink - the wee hours of the morning be damned. Yes, a drink. A strong one. He excused himself to Billie and Daud, who evidently didn’t hear him – and he headed up and out of the basement, let himself out of the store and then made his way to the ‘Flask. He wasn't too worried about not being able to lock the door back behind him. Gods help the fool who walked into there right now.

Daud stood quietly in the basement taking in what he had found inside Billie, turning it over in his mind before speaking. He knew that one day this conversation would happen. “Is that what you’re really thinking about, Billie? After what I just told you, the hell I’ve been through – you stand there thinking ‘why not me’? Notice you?! Yes, Billie - I noticed you. For years I would catch the way you looked at me when you thought I wasn’t looking. Sometimes when I touched you, something would change in your eyes. Yes, Billie. I _did_ notice."

Billie glared stubbornly at him, saying nothing.

“You don’t believe me. Okay, you need to hear it out loud, do you?” Daud walked up to her with his hands on his hips and looked her right in the eye. “Here’s a good one. It was one of your first jobs with me. The night of the Bartlett 'suicide' job near the Estate District – the chloroform thing we did**. I remember it very well, Billie. Just me and you that night. We got in and out like shadows after pumping the bastard’s belly full and went back to the hideout. We had five small bottles of chloroform, but only ended up needing four. The one that was left over broke in my pocket on the way back, do you remember? You were giddy and high from it and wanted to keep talking to me, even after we got back to the hideout and I just wanted nothing more than to be alone in my room for a while to get the smell off of me. I sent you away, and yet not more than fifteen minutes later you come back up to my room and barged in without knocking. I remember standing there stinking of chloroform in just my breeches and my boots scrubbing my hands in the washbowl and when I turned to look at you to tell you to get the fuck out, _I heard what you were thinking, Billie.”_

Billie looked down, frowning. She remembered but did not want to think about it. “Stop, Daud. Don’t do this. You don’t have to do this.”

“No, Billie – I **do**. You were looking at my hands and you were thinking about the callouses.” Daud narrowed his eyes meanly and held his palms up to Billie, continuing to talk. “You wondered if my hands would feel rough on your bare back, and if you’d bruise when I grabbed your hips. You thought about being on your knees in front of me while I slapped you bloody, before bending you over and taking what you wanted me to take.”

“Daud, enough. Stop it.”

“There were _many_ nights where I could feel your thoughts, Billie. You thought many times about what it would feel like the first time I fucked you, and you wondered if it would hurt. You _wanted_ it to hurt. You need me to go on? There’s plenty more where that came from.” 

“Stop, please. You weren't meant to know those things. It was a long time ago.”

“Listen – all that time you thought I didn’t know, that I didn’t notice. I did, Billie – every single time. And what if I had taken what you wanted so desperately to give? We’d fuck for a while, and then what? Which of us would have been the first to wake up one morning, and realize we were tired of fucking the other? What happens afterward when we look at each other, and see only something we're finished with? Neither of us had the capacity for more than that, Billie. You know it to be true. How could we have stood and fought at each other’s side in the same way after something like that? In the end when it was time to hand over to you all that was mine, and you drove the blade into me - would it have been out of respect, or with disgust and contempt? Is that how you would have had us end, Billie? As for finding you desirable - it was never about you being undesirable to me. You were beautiful then, and you are beautiful now. Yes, Billie – even now. Strong, fascinating, smart - even after that shit you pulled with Delilah - all those things you are to me, still. I loved watching you move back then, creeping like a shadow within inches of someone who never saw you in the moments before you took their lives. Your skill and talent were without equal – still are, I’m sure. My blood felt so alive when you were at my side. _But I didn’t want to fuck you, Billie."_

Billie looked down, saying nothing.

"I’m sure you read The Knife of Dunwall. You can’t tell me that you didn’t. It got nearly everything wrong, but one thing it did get right. Sex has never interested me Billie. Not then, not now. I think about it, and it isn’t any different in my thoughts than the experiments I run in my lab. I find it interesting, but not compelling. In fact, what happened during the possession is the only time it has ever happened for me.” 

Billie looked up in shock – “What? You mean you never… not even…”

“Never.”

Billie walked over to the small table and sat down, lost in her thoughts. It had been so easy to betray him – she allowed herself to paint him in a terrible light, for what – because she didn’t feel like she had truly - _fully_ been at his side, when in fact she had been. More than she knew. Delilah had made her feel powerful and needed in ways that he had not, but it had all been an illusion – the pretty words were ash in Delilah’s lying mouth. Delilah was heat to Daud’s cold – and she flew right into Delilah’s fire blinded by a light that had cost her all that she had left that she had truly cared about. Those dark secret thoughts she had so long ago, once spoken aloud were now laid bare and splayed obscenely open between them - they were but fleeting moments in a mix of a much larger complex set of emotions she felt for Daud. It was beyond common rutting - something different from the love she had felt, and still felt, for Deidre but she didn't need to say it now. He already knew, and always had. All this time, it wasn't him that hadn't noticed these critical shared things - it was _her_.

“Daud, I’m sorry.”

“It needed to be said. It should have been said a long time ago.” Daud leaned over the table, head hanging low, his hands spread wide to hold his weight. He was tired. The fatigue after the kill had set in. He knew that Billie and Thomas were bound to be tired as well. “Where are you staying, Billie?”

“At the ‘Flask. I know old lady Abernathy pretty well and she’s letting me stay in Lottie Worley’s room. Thomas is bunking there too.”

“Go back to the ‘Flask and get your things. I think I heard Thomas say he needed a drink, so he’s probably there already. Tell him to get his things as well. You and Thomas will stay with me at Bldg. 4 across the street. You can see it directly across the square from the front of my store. I own the top two floors, so you’ll need to go in the service stairwell entrance around the back of the building. I have plenty of room, and it will be safer there. I will meet you there in a half-hour."

"Daud..."

"Go now. Leave me.”

And Billie did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** The 'chloroform thing' is based on actual events that came to be known as 'The Pimlico Mystery'.  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pimlico_Mystery


	59. The darkness before dawn

Daud stood at the table in the basement for a few minutes more, rubbing his face with both hands and then focusing on the bridge of his nose. The incessant ringing in his ears had become increasingly intense, and he had a splitting headache. Billie’s behavior had thrown him – he hadn’t seen her in nearly two decades but he couldn’t imagine that she would have changed so much even in that amount of time. The Billie he knew had always been about the subtle tease with a dry delivery – she would have never struck at him in the malignant way that she had just now. He had always been aware of her thoughts about him, as rare as those taboo thoughts had been and he knew - knew for a _fact_ that she had been just as aware of his nature when it came to those sorts of things. Sure, she wouldn’t have known details as Daud had always been careful to cloak his innermost thoughts – but she damned sure knew that while he admired her and in his own way cared about her that even if he had been so inclined nothing of that sort would have happened between them.

So why this spiteful jab at him tonight? He didn’t believe that it was jealousy – there was nothing to be jealous over, given the painful and humiliating experience that it had been. He had sworn he had seen that sliver of black in Billie’s eye, but it was gone as soon as he had seen it. That childish petulance he had seen was troubling. He worried that Billie and Thomas would somehow be caught up in this strange warped version of the Void abilities but he hadn’t anticipated them being caught up in the other entity – or whatever it was. He wasn't sure what his next move would be if that was the case.

That black sliver in Billie’s eye had to have been his imagination, but her behavior wasn’t – it reminded him too much of other spiteful women he had known. Rose. Delilah. Lilika. As much as he didn’t want to have to, he decided to keep a close eye on Billie and Thomas. So far, Billie seemed to be the most affected tangibly. The lightning thing he could not explain, but wondered if the Outsider had something to do with it. The Outsider had been appearing to him again for the first time in many years, and Daud had been saved from a certain death. No, the Outsider wasn’t finished with Daud for whatever reason. He knew there was a connection there, but the method of delivery was far outside of anything that Daud had come to know of the Void. He made a note to work with Billie later and see if there were any other abilities that were available to her. He was curious as to what could be extracted with his help.

Thomas had not been affected in any way physically that Daud could see outside of regaining some vigor while dumping some of that soft chub. He was becoming more the Thomas he remembered, in very subtle ways. Daud had never known a shot like Thomas, and his handling of the clockwork pistol was superb giving that it was his first time shooting a pistol like that. The Black Dragon was entirely unique – its only equal its sister weapon The Red Dragon, which he had given to Billie.

Daud had acquired the pistols as a set from a heavily made up and perfumed dandy fop who had been travelling the Isles some years back and had been unloading unique artifacts along the way to cover travel expenses. The man had wandered into Stridside from the docks carrying a locked deeply polished ornate wooden pistol case with him. He opened the case for Daud, who had some trouble keeping his features neutral when he saw what was inside. He had never seen such weapons. The gentleman attempted some probing conversation with Daud during the negotiations, asking if he knew or had ever heard of a ‘William Black’. The gentleman was looking for him, and was under the impression that Gristol was a likely place to find him or find a way to get in touch with him. Daud had no idea, but sent him to Dunwall anyway and in exchange acquired the pistol set for a remarkably good deal. Daud was never sure if the gentleman found this William Black - he never saw or heard from the gentleman again.

It had taken Daud some time to get used to the rapid fire of the clips, and the agonizing kick that guaranteed a bruised palm for some time. He hadn’t used them often, and never outside of general practice. Thomas seemed to take to the pistol immediately, though and if he suffered from the kick he didn’t mention it. Thomas seemed to be leaning down mentally as well as physically. He still looked like a basic lawyer type but Daud could see a change in his eyes even from the first time they spoke at Stridside. Daud stood straight, cracking his spine out a little and stretching before taking some time to put everything back in its place in the basement, checking the locks on his trunk and his safe, and reviewing his inventory one last time before heading back upstairs. He was relieved that there were no early bird customers to disappoint this morning as he locked up his shop door behind him, and headed across the square to Bldg. 4.

****

**************

Rose waited a few minutes after it heard the door locking from upstairs to coalesce out of its shadow form in the corner of the basement. It was pleased that it had been able to access the brown skinned woman – this Billie Lurk. It hadn’t been easy. The woman’s mind was locked tightly, warding off even the most intense of probes that Rose had sent out to her since Billie’s arrival in Baleton. Each time it had sent a probe, this woman’s mind had deflected it without effort – perhaps not even aware of it at the time. Tonight though, it had managed to find the smallest of vulnerabilities in this woman’s exhausted brain, and entered just long enough to find a useful pocket of dead memories pertaining to Daud and to Delilah. It had brought these memories back to the forefront, raw and alive after years of being buried. It found just the right tone and delivery to guarantee a good deal of antagonism, and allow Rose to test the remaining bonds between Daud and Billie. They were far less of a threat if those bonds were weakened further, if not broken altogether.

Over the course of the night, Rose had watched the events at the castle with interest, gauging each of these so-called Whaler’s abilities. Daud it already knew about – knew well, in fact, but Billie and Thomas had been just vague shadows in what Rose had been able to absorb from Daud. Rose knew that each had at one time been linked to Daud through the bond, and correctly predicted that being in Baleton would awaken their latent abilities that still existed deep inside them even without the bond.

These abilities were relatively unpredictable though – each had evidently still been able to hide and move unseen in plain sight, and their speed and precision was far more than what they had arrived in Baleton with. Neither looked as old, or as tired as they had – the eddy in Daud’s basement had acted to charge them. Rose knew that neither Billie nor Thomas had experienced such raw contact with the Void before, and Daud had been affected by the eddy as well – having only experienced the Void as a proxy of the Outsider.

What they had felt was only an infinitesimal hint at the power within the Void. From what Rose had seen of its effects on them, even that miniscule bit was too much. Humans were not designed for direct contact with the Void, and this eddy bleeding the Void out into them had resulted in unforeseen consequences. The man Thomas seemed to be affected the least, while the woman Billie seemed to be affected the most. Rose was not sure about the nature of the lightning strike from Billie’s hand but sensed that it had come about as a form of intervention via proxy against H.H.’s swarm attack to protect Daud.

Rose had been controlling H.H. from the sphere at the top of the tower under the strid, moving him about to test the reactions of the three Whalers. Their reactions and attacks had been somewhat predictable, and Rose took note of what it observed. Thomas was a pistolman and Billie was likely a bladesman as her pistol went unused. Daud was the most surprising of all. He had not used his blade, and used his abilities only to get in close to H.H. in order to poison him. Rose had expected a spectacular show of abilities from him – ramped up by the charge that he had gotten from the eddy, but that was not what had happened.

It made note to arrange the next attack such that Daud would have no choice but use his full range. As able as Rose was to link to Daud, it was unable to see anything clearly enough inside of him to make the next moves with an acceptable margin of risk. Rose needed to see exactly what Daud could and could not do before making its next move, and especially before Lily whelped the experiment into completion. There were only a few weeks left until the experiment was completed and there was still much to do. Rose slipped out of its human form and slunk out of Stridside, sliding the oily black tendrils of its shadow form through the holes in the locks and the spaces between the boards until it found its way outside. H.H. was waiting at the castle ruins, and Rose had much to tell him and much for him to do.


	60. Way hey and up they rise early in the morning

Thomas woke with a start and sat up in bed, disoriented – his thoughts fuzzed. He wasn’t sure where he was at first, and as his mind cleared with the weak morning light he remembered that he was at Daud’s home. It was safe here, and Thomas laid back down for a moment waiting for his head to fully clear. He barely remembered the walk over from the ‘Flask.

Billie had come into the room and woke him with her noisy rapid packing, cramming what little she had back in her rucksack. When she saw him stirring, she rushed him up and out of bed and he packed as well. As well as he could with a still-hard buzz, anyway. He hoped he hadn’t forgotten anything, but figured it would be easy enough to retrieve it if he had. Billie hadn’t said much on the walk over to Daud’s place and he didn’t want to ask. Whatever that had been about, Thomas wanted no part of. There had been a reason they kept that kind of shit out of the Whalers. She didn't seem to be injured in any way so he simply left it to unspoken words. They had both been dead tired, the adrenaline of the night had long burned out of them. They met Daud at the back service stairs of his place, with few words exchanged between the three of them.

Thomas had been impressed with Daud’s home when they made their way inside. Though their previous hideouts had been layered and riddled with various degrees of rot, dirt and damp, Daud had made sure the place was kept as orderly as possible within their means to do so. His home was a reflection of a lifetime of tightly-controlled order and efficiency. No extra junk laying around, spartan amenities, clean and polished. Thomas liked it. Except for a couple of Delilah’s paintings that he saw hanging on the walls - those he decidedly did not like, but not for any reason outside of sour memories. The paintings no longer held the sinister aura or pull that they once had. They were just paint on canvas now. Perhaps they served as trophies as some sort. Thomas didn’t want to ask about that either – some things were better left in the past. There had been little by way of a tour, just enough to show the rooms and the washrooms. Billie had taken Lily’s room downstairs, and Thomas had taken the guest room upstairs next to Daud’s room.

Thomas sat back up, his head finally clearing fully and looked at his pocketwatch. He was not surprised to see that by the date, they had slept all through the previous day and night. Evidently Billie and Daud still needed more sleep, judging from the dead silence in the house. He got up quietly, making his way to the washroom – and his breeches and undershorts promptly dropped down around his ankles. Had he been so drunk that he forgot to lace and belt his breeches? He looked down and immediately understood. He was afraid to look away, thinking that he was seeing some sort of illusion or perhaps having a vivid dream. He touched his middle gingerly, his fingers coming in firm and very real contact with the hard flat midsection that until now had been buried in chub for the better part of ten years now. He shifted his shoulders around in his jacket – yes, that was loose too. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Was he ready to see the man staring back at him through the mirror? Yes, he believed so.

Thomas stood naked in front of the mirror, looking at his reflection in wonder. He hadn’t counted on his face undergoing the same stunning change as the rest of his body. The Thomas looking back out at him was the Whaler he remembered. There was still a bit of gray there, but his otherwise dirty-blonde hair was thicker. His cheeks dipped in instead of bloating out and were it not for the faint webbing of wrinkles around his eyes he’d swear he was in his forties again instead of pushing sixty. If he had changed this drastically, he wondered if Billie had as well. Perhaps Daud had dropped some more years as well. It was clear that his process had already been underway by the time he and Billie met in Baleton. There was no natural way Daud should have looked as young as he did. Would there be more of that red-black in his hair instead of iron gray this morning?

Thomas went about the business of bathing, appreciating the quality of the soap and washrag as the mud, sweat, stink and grime from the past two days sluiced down the drain. When he was finished, he realized to his dismay that he had nothing to wear now - not that would fit, anyway. Daud was smaller than he had been, and he hoped that he would be able to borrow some clothes from him. He damned sure hated the idea of having to wake him, and was particularly not happy about doing so in only a towel to cover himself but it had to be done.

Thomas tapped quietly on Daud’s door, and to Thomas's relief he was already awake. He let himself in when Daud asked him to come in. Daud stood at the open window in his undershirt and breeches, smoking a cigarette and when he turned to look at Thomas, Thomas had to catch his breath at how much he looked like he had nearly twenty years ago. Daud’s eyebrows had hitched up in evident reaction to Thomas’s changes as well. “I suppose you'll be needing some smaller clothes,” said Daud and gestured toward his wardrobe for Thomas take what he needed.

Thomas grabbed a few items of clothes, with a ‘thanks’ and a promise to return them after a trip to the ‘Tog. He was actually looking forward to shopping for clothes that were _not_ in the ‘portly’ gentlemen’s section. There was a lot to do today, so he got dressed quickly and then sat at the small writing desk for a bit, working up a schedule and checklist of things that he intended to accomplish by nightfall. Within the half-hour he heard Billie tapping at his door and then the two of them headed to grab Daud and discuss the plans for the day.

The three of them sat at Daud’s table in the dining area, looking very much like their old selves - save for Billie's eye and arm, she didn't look much different than she had the last time Thomas had seen her. They drank cup after cup of fresh hot coffee and compared notes - taking breaks every now and then to smoke on the back service deck. The plans were as they had decided previously: today, Thomas would go the ‘Rat hole to meet Cholly and look at forming a merger or at the very least see if they could count on the ‘Rats for support, and see what further information Thomas could find out about H.H. that would pertain to Rose or her whereabouts. Daud and Billie would meet with Lib Fury and see what she may know about the same. They would also go see Anne Bonny, and look at getting treatment for Billie's hand. Once they had exhausted their options for information and taken care of some business, they would meet back at the ‘Flask for supper and compare notes.

The three of them headed out into the morning, and Thomas walked down the toward the docks while Billie and Daud headed toward the business side. The morning was surprisingly bright. The storms from the past few days had apparently blown over and out to sea. The air was salt-fresh, carrying only the slightest hint of bitter hemlock. Thomas felt alive in ways he had not for a long time. He had the clockwork pistol holstered under the thick jacket that he had borrowed from Daud, and he was ready for what the day would bring.

It was quieter at the docks this morning than usual, with only a fraction of the regular roughnecks and travelers that had been milling around on the day that Thomas had disembarked in Baleton. It was nice to have some quiet to think about the best way to approach Cholly. He wasn’t concerned about Cholly so much as he was having to tell him about killing H.H. There had been bad blood between Cholly and H.H., yes – but H.H had run the ‘Rats for a long time. There was bound to be some mixed feelings there. He stopped by a Worley stand and bought a few apples, and ate them on the way up the road toward the ‘Rat hole.

When he walked up on the ‘Rat hole, he saw Cholly outside at a workbench standing with a tall spindly wisp of a dark-haired boy wearing thick spectacles. They were bent over something, studying it closely. When Thomas walked up, Cholly turned and did a slight double-take at Thomas’s appearance but otherwise seemed pleased that Thomas had taken him up on the offer to stop by. He walked up to greet Thomas and shook his hand, and the two of them walked over to the workbench. The dark-haired boy was younger than Thomas first thought – his height belied his years. The boy was working on something that was taking the shape of something vaguely familiar – but Thomas couldn’t quite make out what it was meant to be so far. What the boy was piecing together was intricate – the neatly filed metal slivers and thin bars formed a series of joints that were held together rather professionally with a collection of various sized springs, tiny cogs and clasps. The dark-haired boy barely took notice of Thomas, and glanced up only briefly when they approached. Cholly introduced Thomas to the boy, and the boy looked up – his eyes magnified behind the thick lenses of his slightly bent spectacles. He wiped his oily hands on his breeches, and then shook Thomas’s hand and in a thin reedy voice said “Joplin. Pleased to meet you, sir.” Thomas was stunned. The boy had looked familiar, and he hadn’t been able to put his finger on why – but as soon as the boy said ‘Joplin’ it became very clear. Surely not, though. Thomas kept a good natured curiosity about him stripping any suspicion from his voice, and said ‘Joplin’, haha - any relation to … and the boy cut him off with a curt ‘yes’, and turned back to his work. Thomas looked at Cholly, who signaled with just a look and a shrug that he would explain later.

Cholly bade Joplin a ‘see you later’ and then he and Thomas headed into the ‘Rat hole. Thomas looked at Cholly and said “Piero Joplin? _that_ Piero Joplin?” and Cholly confirmed it. Joplin wasn’t particularly proud of it, but yes – Joplin’s father was _that_ Piero Joplin. Cholly explained briefly what had happened – how Joplin’s mother Cora Pearl had been seduced and somehow driven insane by Piero Joplin when he came to Baleton to work on the lighthouse back in '39. When Joplin left for Dunwall, never to return - he left a baby in Cora Pearl's belly that he likely died without knowing about. Cora Pearl had ended up in the ‘Wilds and gave birth there. She lived there still, in fact, in the care of the ladies of the Lodge. Joplin was young when he found his way to Baleton, and he had been with the ‘Rats ever since. Like his father before him, he was a genius with gadgets and little inventions that kept things running as well as they did at the ‘Rat hole. That was the only thing that Joplin would give his father credit for. He would never forgive him for what he had done – he had given the boy life while robbing him of a mother. His mother would never be right in the head, and Joplin had accepted this some time ago. Thomas asked what Joplin had been working on, and Cholly told him that Joplin was working on a gift for Captain Foster, one that Cholly had requisitioned for a good bit of coin. He played coy about what it was, promising that he would tell Thomas in time what it was. He didn’t want the surprise spoiled.

The ‘Rat hole was not what Thomas expected. From the way the outside of the building looked, he had figured it would live up to its name on the inside as well, but in fact it was dry and clean. The walls, while splintered in places had been roughly sanded and painted over neatly. The floors were swept, and the window glass wiped clean. The place carried a faint smell of the hemlock that had been processed within for generations previously but other than that it was not much different than any other half-way decent living spaces he had seen in his time. Children young and older were dotted throughout the ‘Rat hole, some working on various little projects – cleaning and oiling scavenged parts for weapons, some were mending clothing. A few laid in their bunks resting and many were clumped in little groups talking quietly amongst themselves, trying to look as if they were not paying close attention to their guest. The kids looked relatively clean and well-cared for. He did not see the desperate poverty or aura of illness that he had seen in the Dunwall mudlarks. He was impressed. Had H.H. been responsible for this? Cholly said that he certainly had not been – he and Lottie had spent a lot of time cleaning the place up after H.H. disappeared, and together re-structured the systems that H.H. had in place. Sure, they were still criminals but Cholly would not have them be the grimy sort that they had been. Cholly knew that Thomas was there for more than just a grand tour, though and said that it was time they made their way to the offices to talk some business.

They had gone into the cellar, where Cholly had relocated the offices that had been upstairs. Cholly sat down behind one of the desks and gestured to a nearby chair “Have a seat, Mr. Kerrigan.” Thomas sat and thought about how he wanted to start. “Cholly, there’s a lot we need to talk about. I’ll just come right out with it. The night before last…”

His sentence was cut cleanly off by a sudden loud jangling of bells that filled the cellar from floor to roof. Cholly was on his feet in an instant, opening his jacket and pulling a mean-looking long-nosed pistol from a flat holster strapped to his chest, and cocking it before sprinting to the stairs leading up to the ‘Rat hole. Thomas followed him, instinctively pulling his own pistol and readying the clip. He followed Cholly up the stairs, having no idea what was going on but thankful that his reflexes were soundly in place to be able to help out. Cholly sprinted through the ‘Rat hole rushing kids here and there into hiding before sprinting up the stairs to the top floor and down one of the hallways. He knocked on a door on the far end of the hallway, and said something through the door quietly that Thomas couldn’t make out. “Cholly, what the fuck is going on?” he hissed. Cholly sprinted back up to the front near the stair landing and stood with his back to one of the front windows. He leaned slightly and looked through the curtain. Cholly looked back at Thomas and nodded for him to cover the other side. As Thomas was getting into place, Cholly said “That was our alarm. Looks like H.H. has come to pay us a visit.” Thomas was confused – what? He looked through the curtain and down into the yard, where H.H. stood clear as day with his hands on his hips, squinting up at the windows.


	61. Chapter 61

Daud insisted that Anne Bonny’s be the first stop of the day, and Billie hadn’t argued. Daud had seen her trying to minimize the damage to her palm, but he knew that it had to be painful. He was already picking up a faint scent of infection, and though they were in good hands with Anne he didn’t think they could afford to be careless. Daud had lost a number of Whalers in his time to gruesome deaths, but death by infection was probably the worst way he had seen them go. The old hideout had been pretty bad for picking up various ailments – the rat shit, dust, and mold lent a never-ending unhelpful hand to those Whalers who had less of the protections that Daud’s mark provided. As bad as that was, the flooded district was far worse. The creeping damp and decomp-rich water magnified the chances of illness and infection exponentially. He had seen some pretty bad cases of infection – everything from septic blotch to brown scab rot. There had been times where he had to put a Whaler down at the tip of his blade, screaming and out of their minds feverish and hallucinating from the pain of the rot softening and liquefying their insides. After the Whalers moved to the flooded district, Daud had tried to be careful in scheduling assignments according to the protections that his Whalers had (or did not). He had as much use for the reconnaissance and bookish info-gathering types who did their best work in dry B&E’s as he did his muck-shufflers who were out ankle deep in corpses, blood and shit. He didn’t want to lose Whalers then, and he didn’t want to lose them now, either. With his only means of protecting her gone, Daud was damned sure going to find another way to look out for Billie.

Anne’s bakery was open and business was brisk. Daud and Billie walked into the shop, breathing in the warm yeasty buttery air. It didn’t take either long to decide that perhaps breakfast _was_ a good idea. Anne’s son Jack was working the counter this morning, and he was happy as always to see Captain Foster and Mr. Merrock. Billie bought a bag of hot-pop buns and Daud got a spiced stone-cake – cooked just moments ago on the big oiled stone slab that ran along the front length of the huge oven where Anne’s creations came to life. As Billie and Daud were settling payment, Gryffid Willems walked in with Jocelyn, and both gave hearty hellos to both Hearne and Captain Foster – ‘Why, Hearne I had no idea you and Captain Foster knew each other! Good to see you, Meagan – how fares the ‘Wale’? Like most who heard it had been sold, he and Jocelyn were saddened but glad that Meagan was still making her way into Baleton if not by sea, then by land. Hearne had explained that he and Captain Foster had known each other a good number of years, though had just recently been reunited much to his delight. From Gryffid, there was some good-natured (though lightly cautious) ribbing of Hearne about their alcoholic misadventures a few nights ago, and after some small talk Gryffid and Jocelyn made their way to ‘their’ table next to a large window that looked out over the port-side and out into the bay.

Daud leaned in closely to Jack, and asked if his mother may have a moment to speak with them and Jack was more than happy to fetch her. He wiped his floury hands on the clean towel that hung around his waist, and then headed into the back of the store. Within a few minutes, Anne came out – her hair pulled up in a bun and flour speckled here and there from head to toe. She had been experimenting with a new type of bread, and they were just in time to keep her from being disappointed that it hadn’t worked out. She took them in the back, and Daud explained quietly that Meagan had managed to get an electrical burn and he was afraid that it may have become infected. Anne frowned, concerned – electrical burns could be nasty, the damage usually spreading far more inward than out and motioned for her to have a seat.

Anne took Billie’s palm in her own, carefully examining the small rings of burns. She looked up at them both, and said that she knew good and damned well that this was not an electrical burn and said that if they expected to be able to get effective treatment, they’d have to be a little more … frank about the origins. She didn’t care a whit about what caused it, but she’d need to know at least a little more so that she could treat it. Daud and Billie were at a loss for what to say. Daud knew that Billie didn’t want her cover blown, and Billie wasn’t sure if Anne knew about Daud.

Anne pressed her lips together disapprovingly at their silence and reminded them that they were among friends. A _true_ friend she said, looking meaningfully at Daud. Daud glanced at Billie and noted just a hint of softening in Billie’s face at Anne’s reassuring words, and decided that perhaps it was best that Anne knew what was going on. He began talking about the evening at the castle ruin, and his story touched on the night that Anne had found him in the road raving deliriously. Suddenly it clicked for Anne. She had heard a number of names from the bad old days slurring from Daud over the course of that night while she watched over him – of course. Billie saw the light go on behind her eyes, and Anne smiled good-naturedly. Damnit Meagan, I should have known you were Lurk. She clapped Billie on the shoulder, and said that she had known about Daud from the beginning, and that she had nothing to worry about. Anne had no intention of blowing her cover, or Daud’s for that matter. Billie was confused at first, but when Anne gave her a little of her own background Billie understood. She probably had known Anne when she was a Hatter, though women in the Hatter ranks at that time had been fairly low-profile. Billie felt a sense of relief and nostalgia – far from what she would have expected to feel from being found out.

Daud and Billie explained that Thomas was in town as well, and that something had come after Daud and was actively hunting them down – for what reason, Daud wasn’t sure but being a Whaler was probably reason enough. He explained what had happened at the castle ruins, how H.H. had attacked them with abilities that were not entirely unlike those given by the Outsider. They each chipped in on the narrative, and Billie explained how she had somehow channeled lightning – perhaps a strike had gone through her and erupted through her hand. She was certain that it was not any sort of Void ability. Anne nodded at this – lightning did tend to do that after entering a given point in the body, though with usually far more damage. They ended with the death – shit, the _obliteration_ \- of H.H. They told Anne that they had left what remained of him up at the ruins, with little doubt that not a single soul would recognize the puddle of slurry as having once been human.

Anne sat back in her chair, her arms crossed taking it all in. She asked how certain they had been that it was H.H., and Daud said that there was no doubt at all. He hadn’t looked too good – like something had been eating at him from the inside, but otherwise it had definitely been him.

Anne pushed up her glasses, and looked at Daud and Billie, and said that there was only one small problem with their story: for a dead man H.H. had quite the hearty appetite for sweet rolls. Billie and Daud looked at her with questioning looks on their faces. ‘H.H. left here not more than twenty minutes ago after cramming his gob with no less than four sweetrolls in under a minute.’

Daud looked down, his hands stretching out and then contracting into fists. He was not sure what was going on, but he was fairly certain that evisceration and beheading by a volley of rapid-fire hollow point bullets were permanent conditions. Billie found her words first – asking what H.H. had looked like and Anne said that he looked cleaner and healthier than he had in a while, and was dressed to put a dandy to shame. She figured that he must have come across a rather large take. He had seemed lighthearted, chatty and jovial – a far cry from his usual sour sarcastic self. Anne stood to ready what she thought she would need for the examination, figuring that the first focus would need to get Meagan’s hand looked at – or at least get started while they were figuring things out. She had been able to pick up the faint odor of infection and didn’t want to tarry. “Let’s see that hand, Meagan. You don’t mind if I still call you Meagan, do you?” Billie smiled and said that she was fine with that.

Anne tended to Billie’s hand, carefully draining the blisters and swabbing a paste of crushed clove and yarrow around the burns. She gently packed down the paste and then wiped the excess, and then dry-bandaged Billie’s hand with orders to return no later than the same time tomorrow to have her dressings replaced. Billie thanked her, and Anne waved off her offer to pay. She said that she would keep an eye out for H.H., and if she saw anything unusual that she would send them a message by a runner as soon as she did. In the meantime, she would see what she had by way of other goods that may be helpful to them. On the house.

She believed Billie and Daud when they said that they had killed H.H. The more she thought about it, the less that the person she had just exchanged words with a half-hour ago seemed like the H.H. she knew. Anything was possible when it came to the Outsider and his ilk. She hoped that whatever it was would be taken care of quickly. This was _Baleton_ for fuck’s sake. Dunwall, the Outsider, stupid goddamned rats, plague, elixirs – she was _done_ with that shit. At least she hoped so.

As Daud and Billie were leaving, Daud asked Anne if she happened to know where H.H. would have been heading, and Anne said that the last she saw he was heading out toward the port-way road. Daud and Billie looked at one another. The ‘Rat hole. Thomas. _Shit._


	62. Showdown at the 'Rat hole

Cholly looked down at H.H., swearing under his breath. He couldn’t believe that he would come back here after what he had done to ‘Daf. He pulled back the curtain a bit, to get a closer look. H.H. was standing with his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth lightly on his feet and had begun whistling. Had he gone mad? And what the fuck was he wearing? He looked like a dandy-puff in that ridiculous white suit. Thomas was gesturing at Cholly to get his attention, but Cholly was more concerned about keeping that sonofabitch away from the kids, and particularly away from Lottie. Cholly hissed at Thomas to keep quiet so he could hear what H.H. was shouting up toward the window.

“Now, Cholly you may as well come on down and talk to me. If you don’t I’m goin’ to come right up there and you ain’t gonna like what I’m goin’ to do on my way up.”

Cholly knew that H.H. wasn’t kidding, and holstered his pistol. Cholly turned from the window, and Thomas grabbed his arm and whispered to him, “Cholly, look – that is _not_ Hilliard Humphreys.” Cholly looked at him incredulously. “Oh, it’s not? Ok, it must be Empress Emily or maybe it’s old crazy Joplin back from the dead to visit his boy. Oh, no - I know – it’s Slackjaw, must be. C’mon Thomas, what are you getting at? That is clearly H.H. down there.”

Thomas pulled himself closer to Cholly, his eyes fully Whaler now. “Cholly, night before last I personally blew that fuckers brains out right through his face, and sent his guts trailing after them. I killed him, Cholly. I saw what was left, and I’m telling you _that is not Hilliard Humpreys_.” 

Cholly’s mind raced. He didn’t know Thomas but he _did_ know H.H. and on some level Thomas was absolutely correct. Whoever that was wasn’t the H.H. he knew, hadn’t been for a while. Thomas took his hand from Cholly’s arm and stepped back. Cholly thought quickly, rapidly coming up with a semblance of a plan.

“Ok, Thomas. We’ve got to get to him before he gets inside. I don’t want a single hair on any of these kids, or on Lottie, touched. If we leave him down there, he will just come in. We haven’t changed the locks yet, and H.H. surely still has his keys. Joplin is working on a set of new locks that don’t require keys, but hasn’t finished them yet. I have a signal we use here, and if I give it every ‘Rat with a sight trained on H.H will fire at once. I assure you there are no less than ten of them right now ready for my signal. We’ve practiced this a hundred times at least. I’m telling you – if I give this signal, there is no way in this world or the next that he will survive it. Once the volley is finished, you and I will go down there and secure the area.”

Cholly didn’t like the look on Thomas’s face when he agreed to the plan, and he especially didn’t like Thomas’s grim suggestion that he had better have a backup plan. Cholly glanced back at the door at the end of the hallway, and told Thomas he’d be right back. Cholly went to Lottie’s door, and tapped quietly in the code that told her it was him. She opened the door, and held open her arms. Cholly fell into her embrace, breathing in the scent of her hair and skin. She held him tightly, and when he told her that he loved her, his heart squeezed nearly painfully when for the first time, she told him that she loved him too. He drew back, and held her face gently in his hands and kissed her forehead. He didn’t tell her what he was about to do, but he knew that she must know. He smiled a little half-smile, memorizing every detail of her face for the hundredth-thousandth time to carry in his heart for however much time he had left and then he turned to go, locking the door behind him.

Cholly unholstered his pistol and ran his hand along the wall of the hallway as he walked. Thomas wasn’t sure what he was doing but he was hearing nearly silent irregular clicks as Cholly’s hands triggered some seemingly invisible mechanism along the wall. Cholly skipped a few feet of the wall and when he got to the landing he pressed his hand on an ever so slightly differently colored square of paint on the wall, and it gave slightly under his hand. Silent pressure plates. Thomas was impressed. He wasn’t sure exactly how the signal worked but no less than a few seconds after Cholly’s hand sank the plate down, the air came alive with gunfire. There was the sharp crack and pop of the smaller caliber weapons, and the roaring whomp of a blunderbuss or two, along with various other shotgun and pistol shot. Cholly stood looking at Thomas, not saying a word until the gunfire went silent. He heard the first whistles indicating that the target was down. He nodded at Thomas, and they headed down to see what was left of H.H.

On the way down and out of the ‘Rat hole, Cholly sent the kids who had wandered out and were milling around in the common room back into hiding. He wasn’t sure what Thomas had been on about, but he was surely not going to take chances. Once all of the kids were accounted for, Thomas and Cholly stepped out into front yard toward H.H.’s slumped form. The smell of burnt oil and gunpowder and cordite hung thickly in the air, and they walked slowly, their pistols trained on the body. When they were close enough to stand over him, they holstered their pistols – Thomas perhaps a beat slower than Cholly to do so. H.H. was laying on his side, and was full of holes from all sides. The volley must have spun him around a few times. One of his shoes was off and laying at some distance from his body. Cholly toed his body over to its other side, and saw that a good quarter of his skull on that side had been blown away. Cholly wasn’t sure how he was going to feel seeing this, but looking down at him was glad that he felt nothing. The H.H. he knew had died long before this, and Cholly was fresh out of mourning. Cholly stood back as Thomas stood over H.H.’s body and emptied a clip into the top half of his body. Cholly couldn’t bring himself to watch that, and when he turned to see the aftermath there was nothing left above H.H.’s midsection but a wide fan of bright blood and bits of bone and meat. Cholly looked up, shading his eyes to see the pale faces of the ‘Rats that were stationed on the roof staring back down at him. This had been their first kill. He knew that the ‘Rat hole would be quiet for a while to come. The only sound in the yard was the sound of Thomas loading up another clip.

Cholly cleared his throat. “Well, Thomas I suppose we have some cleaning up to do.” Cholly was picking up H.H.’s shoe when he heard the first shouts for him to _**get the fuck away, run!**_ He looked around wildly – what the everliving hell? Captain Foster was running up the road toward the yard, and Old Man _Merrock_ was running with her?! Cholly stepped back from what was left of H.H.’s corpse, and dropped the shoe and readied his pistol, pivoting around while giving hand signals to the ‘Rat snipers. He heard the various snicks, pops and shuffles of reloading, and signaled for them to hold fire. Captain Foster and Hearne Merrock ran directly to him, each grabbing an arm and then running him inside with Thomas following, covering the yard with his pistol on the way in and pulling the door shut behind them.

Cholly yanked his arms away, angry and confused. “With all due respect Meagan, do you mind telling me what the fuck is going on? And _you_ , why are you here, Old Man?” The look in Merrock’s eyes would have otherwise made him nervous, but not right now. Right now they were in _his_ home, and he wanted answers, and he wanted them right the fuck _now_.

Meagan laid her hand on Cholly’s shoulder and told him gently that they needed to talk, and asked if there were a quiet place to do so, quiet meaning ‘private’ of course. Cholly said that he did, but that he would need to signal his snipers first. They followed Cholly upstairs and watched as he walked along the wall down the hallway in a seemingly random pattern, pressing his hands in places along the wall. Thomas looked on, nodding appreciatively. He told Billie and Daud that they were silent pressure plates. Daud’s eyebrows raised in a way that said he was also impressed. When Cholly finished, he walked them to the basement. Meagan said that they didn’t have much time, so she came right out with it, skipping the formalities of ‘have a seat’ or ‘lets have a drink’.

“Cholly, you know Thomas and you know me, but what you don’t know is who we really are.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly watching the confusion build on Cholly’s face, and continued. “You know me as Captain Meagan Foster, but these two know me as Billie Lurk.” When she gestured to Thomas, it clicked for him. So Megan and Thomas were Billie and Thomas, the seconds to Daud of the Dunwall Whalers. A realization crept through Cholly like a slow floe of ice sliding down his spine. No, it couldn’t be. He looked slowly from Thomas and Meagan to Merrock, who was scowling back at him with his arms crossed across his chest. Cholly _really_ looked at him for the first time, studying his features – the eyes, the scar that ran down into his beard. Daud. The Assassin Daud. Of course. The ‘Rats had always known there was more to Old Man Merrock than he was letting on, but they had taken him for a retired notorious pirate or a crooked merchant on the lam, not the fucking black magic assassin Daud from Dunwall!

Cholly felt faint, and stumbled down into a nearby chair, propping his elbows on his knees and holding his head down slightly to get his bearings. Megan continued, and quickly caught him up on what was going on. Yes, they had killed H.H. the night before last. Thomas had shot him, obliterating a good deal of him and Daud had melted his face right off of his skull. They had found out that he had come back not more than an hour ago, and had tracked him here. Meagan wasn’t sure how H.H. had come back, or how long they had before he came back again but one thing was clear. They were going to have to make sure that there was nothing left of him to come back with. Daud added that this time, they were going to make sure that his body was properly discarded. They were going to gather up every drop of what was left of him in that yard, and dump the pieces in random places along the strid. Thomas nodded, finding it a sound enough idea. After the strid, they would convene back at the ‘Flask for something to eat, and hopefully work with Lib Fury to figure out how to hunt down Rose.

Cholly looked at them. The Whalers from Dunwall, the originals. “Well I’ll be damned,” he thought to himself. He asked them why they were here, why they were _really_ here. Daud looked at Cholly and said that it was his hope that Cholly would consider an alliance between the Whalers and the ‘Rats. Cholly was stunned. The _Whalers_ and the ‘Rats? He started to say something, but couldn’t find the words. Instead, he reached out and he and Daud shook firmly on it.


	63. Lib and Lily return to the Cabin

Lib was not happy that they were back at the small cabin so soon. Lily had stubbornly insisted on coming back and no measure of convincing would change her mind. Lily had agreed to stay another day and night after she had been carried to the Lodge, but no more. This morning, Lily was up and gathering her things as the sun rose over the horizon. The Elder woman had been persistent in her attempts to get Lily to stay, at least until she was ready to birth, but Lily was equally persistent in wanting to leave and so this morning Lib had gathered Lily’s ‘new’ clothes, and the supplies she had bought in Baleton from the cold larder. Lib slipped the packet of medicinal supplies that the Elder woman prepared for Lily into her coat pocket, and the two of them had come back to the small cabin. Lily didn’t seem the least bit concerned about being alone. She reminded Lib that the Elder woman had promised that there would be eyes on the place day and night, and that she would be as safe as she could be while staying by herself. There was some insinuation that the Elder woman would _know_ when it was Lily’s time to … Lib couldn’t make her mind wrap around the idea of Lily giving birth. She wondered if this calm that had seemed to come over Lily was from assurance or shock. Sometimes there was little difference. When they got the cabin, Lily laid down for a rest and Lib unpacked.

**************

Lib stood at the table in the small cabin gutting and cleaning fish. The trimmed blood-ox bones were roasting in the small crock that was nestled in the coals of the stove. Soon, she would start the broth and then move on to the potatoes and so on. There was a comfort to the rote process of making cawl. Every step had its place, every step subject to the immutable factors of time and order. It gave her something to focus on and grounded her. Never had she been involved in anything quite as fucked up as what was going on right now. Nothing made sense. Lily was not pregnant one day, and hugely the next. Hilliard Humphreys had, within a couple of weeks become an entirely different person – some dangerous thing with black magic powers cavorting up at the castle ruins with that red-headed bitch that had blown into town bearing a faintly familiar face, and an entirely unfamiliar brand of reality. And Hearne… _Daud?!_. These things that were happening were simply not meant to happen here. This wasn’t Dunwall, where it seemed black magic and witches there were as common as Worley Produce stands here.

Lib looked over as Lily pulled her bulk up out of the bed where she had been resting and sat in one of the chairs around the table. She seemed very interested in watching Lib gut and clean the fish and watched as the small chum bowl filled with various guts and small translucent bones as the filets took shape. Lib turned for a moment to check the bones in the stove, and when she turned back holding the crock swaddled in a thick layer of cloth, Lily had her fingertips dipped into the guts with a strange blank look on her face. Before Lib could stop her, Lily pulled up a dripping glob and popped it in her mouth barely chewing before swallowing.

Lib frowned and swore softly in Tyvian under her breath, an oath that had no direct translation to Isles Common, but sufficiently covered the gamut of what Lib was feeling – anger and disgust with a touch of restraint. The Elder woman had explained that Lily was going to eat whatever her body demanded of her, regardless of whether it was cold wet clay or in this case, tepid chunks of fish guts. Lily had evidently seen Lib’s expression, and stopped scooping the guts for a moment. She had that same blank look on her face, and Lib was glad to see her stop. Lily shifted her mouth around as if feeling for something inside, pulled up the bowl and spat the tough clear part of an eye into the bowl, and then continued to scoop the guts, picking around the bones to get to every bit of the soft parts.

Lib rolled her eyes, dropped the roasted bones in a pot of water on the stovetop to simmer and continued chopping the potatoes and bresychand. Lily had picked all she could from the fish bones and had moved on to the heads, prying them open to suck out the various soft and stringy parts inside. Lib just shook her head as she pulled the bowl away from Lily to dump what was left of the fish bones and heads into the pot with the roasted bones. Lib focused her mind on the rhythm and order of the process, calming her mind with the mundane but deeply comforting process of preparing the cawl. Next would be scooping out the hollow and boil-cleaned bones from the broth, then adding the potatoes and bresychand, and lastly floating in a couple of herb sachets that the Elder woman had given her to simmer in the cawl that would add both flavor and critical medicinal elements to the stew. Lib had been afraid that Lily would simply let the cawl sit there largely uneaten, but the Elder woman assured her that with the addition of the sachets, the girl would eat heartily - her body would recognize what it needed. It would also keep her from craving dirt, or clay or any number of other mineral-rich inedibles that pregnant women were wont to crave when malnourished.

Once Lib had the cawl going, she would stay a little while longer but she was more than ready to be back in Baleton, back in her bunk. She was not looking forward to the sour look she was bound to get from Ms. Abernathy when she got back, but it wouldn’t take long to explain her unexpectedly prolonged absence and she knew that Ms. Abernathy would be understanding, given the circumstances. She doubted that when she finally made to her bunk that she would actually be able to sleep, with the state that Lily was in out here. She trusted the Elder woman implicitly – had for years, so in that sense Lily was in good hands but it wouldn’t stop her from worrying. She considered for about the hundredth time telling Lily about H.H. and the woman and what she had seen them doing at the castle ruins, but as in every time before – something stopped her, some sense or whisper telling her ‘not yet’. Lib believed strongly in gut feelings. She didn’t always understand the reasoning behind them, but trusted them. She would wait until the time was right. Lib finally got the final simmer going on the cawl and left Lilly her pocket watch to use as a timer, and with a few final instructions, and after wrapping Lily in a long, warm hug set off back to Baleton.

**************

She told herself that she would not cry, and she did not. Not when Lib said she had to leave, not when Lib took her up in her strong arms making her feel small even in her current state, and she did not cry when Lib gave that final nod to her before closing the door of the shack behind her. When the door shut, Lily counted to 100 slowly, and then crumpled beside the bed wailing. She cried with every ounce of her being. Ragged ugly snotty crying. Cursing, yelling angry crying. Now that she was alone, all of that could come out – and it did. She knew there was probably some alarmed ‘Wilds lookout who was worried at the noise, but the Elder woman would no doubt set them straight. The Elder woman had talked to Lily at length about her pregnancy. Lily was hesitant to talk at first, and as she got comfortable with the Elder woman she was full of questions, and the Elder woman full of answers. She learned more than she had ever thought about carrying a child and birthing one – more than she ever intended to know in her lifetime but she felt better knowing. She felt better knowing that she could scream and cry and yell and sob as much as she wanted and that it would be ok to do so. That it was ok to not know if you could love the child you were carrying.

She wondered if her own mother thought these things. She wished she could talk to her again, just once. She had not forgotten what Deidre had said about being able to visit her lover Billie in Billie’s dreams. She had not gotten a chance to ask if it were possible for her to see her own mother again in the same way. The dead could evidently visit the living in their dreams, but could the living compel the dead into their own? Lily wasn’t sure and there was no one to ask who would know for sure, not unless she saw Deidre again.

Not for the first time, Lily thought of all the things she would ask her mother if she could. She knew on some deep level that her mother loved her. This she did not doubt. There was a bond there that lasted beyond Lily’s ability to remember much about her mother. All she had to do was think of sandalwood and rose, and catch a hint of cigarettes in the air. She wanted to know about her father. She never knew who he was. She would ask Lib, but she was afraid that Lib didn’t know either. All Lily had to go by were her blue-gray eyes, and her slightly jugged-out ears – ears fully visible again now that her hair had been shorn. She closed her eyes, and tried to visualize her mother and her father. Her mother was a collection of faint memories: warm light, a soft bed and her smells. She could not bring a full picture of her into focus. Her mind kept stubbornly going back to this Rose, the Lighthouse lady. She knew in her heart that her face was not the same, though. When she tried to visualize her father, nothing immediately came to mind. She thought of every type of man she could think of: thugs, rich men, young men, old men – men with red hair, brown, bald and nothing stuck. Did her mother and father love each other? Had he ever held baby Lily in his arms? There was only a small detail, a very faint tugging at her mind. Down below the strid, she had seen the Wolf-Man in a red uniform. Something about a uniform tickled in her mind – not a red one, maybe blue or gray? Somehow, she wasn’t sure how - she knew that she would never know, because in her very being she felt, she _knew_ that he was dead too.

The tears had slowed, and she felt heavy and sodden inside and out. Until now she had not wanted to touch or even look at her belly, disgusted and horrified by the thing that had burrowed into her and taken root but after her many conversations with the Elder woman felt begrudgingly curious. She looked down at the mound in her middle, and tried to imagine her own mother looking down at herself. Lily poked the side of her belly lightly with a finger, but nothing happened. The Elder woman had said that babies generally would be moving by now, but the fact that this one wasn’t was not necessarily a concern given the nature of its creation. They would simply have to wait and see. She laid a palm over the curve of herself, and then the other. She felt ok doing that, and then lifted the shirt over herself to look down at her bare belly. She laid both her hands on her belly, and held them there trying to think of this thing inside of her as a child. Was it a boy? A girl? Would it have its mother’s red hair and pale skin or would it be duskier like… Lily began to cry again, slow hot tears that welled up endlessly.

She cared for Hearne Merrock, _Daud_ or whatever he wanted to call himself, but she could not get her head around carrying his child. Not yet. She wasn’t sure if ever would. If things had been different, perhaps. It was not too far of a stretch to imagine that something like that could happen, but like this? It had been against their wills, both of them. Lily knew this and she also knew that she would not have the heart to hold it against an innocent child. She willed her thoughts down and in toward the child, promising that she would do her best for it as its mother. She spent some time sharing a free-form stream of thoughts, images, memories, emotions – her fears and her hopes with the child and for the first time began to feel a warmth toward it, a protectiveness. She felt a blooming sensation in the very middle of herself, carrying throughout her limbs an unusual intense heat that burned from the inside out, but caused no pain. She felt stronger, her senses sharper and she sat back, enjoying the sensation until her tears dried and the feelings of deep loneliness faded into the background of her thoughts.

After the tears subsided, Lily’s eyes felt dry and hot and she felt a profound emptiness as if the tears had purged some significant blockage in her soul. She became acutely aware of the smell of the cawl filling the shack, and Lily found herself suddenly very hungry. Ravenous. She stood carefully, pulling herself up by the edge of the bed and walked to the stove. When she lifted the lid off of the simmering pot, she closed her eyes and let the fragrant steam imbue her thoughts, clearing her mind. She filled her bowl a few times, resisting the urge to lick the bowl clean each time. The cawl was warm and savory, and helped fill a little of the emptiness inside of her.


	64. Stuff him in a sack and throw him over: The Whalers on Cleanup Duty

Daud, Billie and Thomas headed back outside to get the cleanup going. Cholly and Joplin joined them, with the stipulation that yes, Joplin may study the remains but under no circumstances keep any of them. No, not even a sample. Daud assured him that once they figured out this regeneration Joplin was welcome to run any experiments he wanted but until then, no go. Cholly handed out pairs of gloves, and they all got to work under the watchful eyes of the many ‘Rat snipers perched on the roof and standing sentry at other key points around the ‘Rat hole perimeter.

Daud stepped around H.H.’s corpse carefully, looking into the sprayed scatter of viscera for H.H.’s marked right hand. If Granny Rag’s hand worked for Paolo, then perhaps this hand would be equally useful, though perhaps not in the same way. Daud intended to find it and run a few experiments on it in his lab, perhaps look through one of his many old books to see if he could find a sigillum similar to the mark. It would not be unheard of for other entities to mark their proxies, but he damned sure needed to know a little more about who – or _what_ , they were up against. All he knew at this point was that it skewed distinctly female, and that it was very dangerous and unstable. He vaguely remembered a mention of some female entity that he had read about in some book years ago in his search for the Outsider, but he couldn’t recall which book it was. He hoped that sifting through his books later tonight would jog his memory.

Cholly walked over to the workshop shed with Billie and Thomas, and the three of them grabbed shovels and canvas sacks. Cholly heavily waxed and then oiled the insides of the sacks, in the hope that the slick surface of the sacks would keep what was left of H.H. from absorbing into the weave. It wasn’t likely that residue in a bag could spring forth another H.H. but no one wanted to take chances. Joplin wandered about the remains with a notebook and pen, sketching bits and pieces of H.H. and taking notes.

Billie and Thomas started out on the edges of the blast pattern of what was left of H.H. scooping up gobs of gut shot through with splinters of bone, and emptying the shovels into the bags they were carrying. Cholly worked from the other direction, starting where the largely intact lower half of H.H. was and worked his way outward toward Billie and Thomas. They were careful to scoop the dirt under the mess as well, leaving as little chance as possible for regeneration. Soon there was a neatly scraped fan of bare dirt spreading upward from the lower half of H.H., and all that was left to do was get the rest of his corpse into bags.

They laid down the shovels, and walked back to the workshop shed to see what would be best for the butchering of H.H.’s lower half. Cholly had an impressive array of blades to choose from. Thomas grabbed a large broad-bladed cleaver with a long handle, admiring its heft. He remarked that as a young ne’er-do-well, he dreamed of carrying a cleaver much like this one after hearing all those Slackjaw stories. In a rare moment of humor, Thomas swung it a few times and swaggered, scowling and growling in a flat brogue ‘Aye, who is this under me knife – Slackjaw knows, yes he does, Lurk’. Billie just smiled rolling her eye, shook her head and picked up a small well-balanced hatchet that she could swing easily with one arm. Cholly chuckled, glad for the light moment. He hadn’t figured Whalers for having any sense of humor. He wished the little ones could see this, they’d certainly get a kick out of it. Maybe he could talk Thomas into a repeat performance later tonight, after drinks of course. Lots of drinks. 

Joplin had joined Daud in looking for H.H.’s hand. The unmarked one they found hanging by some sinews still attached to his wrist but his marked hand – the right one had evidently been blasted off. Daud hoped that it wasn’t in shreds at the bottom of one of the chum bags. Daud and Joplin split off walking in different directions. Billie, Thomas and Cholly came out of the shed carrying their butchering tools looking unusually amused given the situation, but Daud had to admit he would rather see them amused than the grim alternative.

The butchering of H.H.’s lower half was swift, and when the last shovelful of muddy slurry went into the bag, Thomas tied off the bag, and tightened low-gauge baling wire around the knot for good measure. Billie and Cholly raked the ground carefully with their shovels to make sure they hadn’t missed any obvious gobbets. Thomas was tying off the next to the last bag when he heard Joplin shout that he had found the missing hand. There were cries of ‘don’t’ touch it!’ and thankfully Joplin didn’t.

Joplin was peering at it, leaning close to take a look. The hand was much further away than any blast would account for, and Daud was not sure what to make of that. He was curious if Joplin could see the mark on the hand. He asked him what he observed about the hand, and Joplin knelt and turned the hand this way and that with a stick and then described the mark as if being asked to describe such a thing was as common as being asked to recite lines or call out his times tables. Joplin stood, pushing his thick glasses up on his nose and said, “With the exception of being on the opposite hand, it is not dissimilar to your own, Mr. Merro…. er, Mr. Daud.”

Daud was not entirely surprised to see that Joplin could see his mark, given who Joplin’s father was, but it unsettled him nonetheless. Daud saw something behind Joplin’s eyes – something that was similar to the chaotic darkness behind his father’s eyes, but more tempered – harder. Years ago, he would have made this strange boy a Whaler even with his reedy voice and thick spectacles. Daud knew that Joplin’s voice belied his fearlessness, and the boy could see things far beyond the need of glasses.

Daud bent and looked at the hand. It was intact and looked unharmed but for the ragged tendons and torn vessels trailing out of the end of the stump. His mind flashed to Billie then, and he tried to push the image of dismemberment from his association with her. It pained him to think of her wounded to that degree. He felt a strange sort of guilt over her injuries. Had Billie still had the bond, there was little or no chance that the Grand Guardsman would have landed a single hit before she took him out, if he saw her at all. It wouldn’t occur to him to ask her, but given the nature of the injury in relation to her eye he figured the most likely scenario was that she threw up her arm to block a hard downstroke, severing her arm and the tip of the sword split her eye socket, taking the meat of her eye with it. She was lucky to have lived. Perhaps there had been some ghost of his protection still inside her after all. A few weeks ago, he wouldn’t have cared. Now, he was glad that she was alive and moreover glad to have her, and Thomas, back at his side.

Daud reached for the hand, and when he touched it all hell broke loose.


	65. Chapter 65

The second Daud’s hand touched H.H.’s hand, his mark flared painfully and he swore loudly bringing his hand back. He stood and shook his hand for a moment as it were on fire, wincing at the intense pain that was still shooting throughout his limbs. Billie, Thomas and Cholly left the sodden chum bags and ran over to Daud and Joplin. Joplin was watching the hand closely, frowning. “I think it’s moving” he said. They cautiously moved into a small circle around the hand and Thomas poked it with his cleaver. The hand did not appear to move, even after Thomas poked it a few more times. No one wanted to pick the thing up, but Daud had no doubt now that they would need that hand in some way. Daud cautioned everyone to stand back, and he closed his eyes taking a deep breath in and out, steeling himself for another onslaught of pain. He reached down again, and touched the hand lightly with a fingertip. It did not move or react in any way, nor did his mark flare at the touch. Daud considered that his marked hand touching that marked hand must have somehow released a discharge of untapped energy from the hand. Perhaps the burning was indicative of distinctly incompatible sources of energy which had flowed through H.H. and Daud’s own. He grabbed the hand, and it burst into sudden writhing life twisting and grasping like a feral rat before clamping down hard on Daud’s left hand.

Daud shot up in surprise trying to shake the hand off of his own, and then tried prying the fingers away but it was clamped to his own like iron. There was no pain, and he held it out for Thomas, Billie and Cholly to take a look at. Joplin peered through their shoulders, looking at the hand with horrified curiosity. The tendons whipped and curled like tails from the end of the severed wrist and Daud could feel the muscles and bones in the hand working to grind harder down on his own. Thomas offered to chop the damned thing off, but Daud wanted to preserve as much of it as he could. They watched the hand as the mark on it slowly began to pulse and glow, and Daud could feel it drawing something from him – perhaps leeching off of his power. He wondered then, if he were to do a transversal if the hand would transverse with him, or drop to the ground when he blinked away. He brought up his hand and with H.H.’s hand still firmly clamped to his own, gestured toward the middle of the yard where H.H. had been neatly scraped up.

The young ‘Rats stationed on the roof and around the yard goggled in quiet awe as they watched a sight they never thought they’d see - _the_ Assassin Daud blinking across the yard of the ‘Rat hole. When Daud appeared across the yard, the hand was still clamped down hard on his own. He didn’t note any particular change and walked back to where Billie, Thomas and Cholly stood with Joplin near the sodden bags.

Billie was looking at him with a strange look on her face. He remembered that look. She was _watching_ something, and she wasn’t sure what it was she was seeing. She tapped Thomas’s arm and nodded her head to what she was trying to figure out. Daud turned to see if he could figure out what she was looking at, but didn’t see anything but the chum bags. When he turned back around Cholly, Billie and Thomas were running toward him. “Daud, it’s on you – it’s on you!” Daud didn’t know what they were talking about until he glanced down. His pants legs were alive with fat red leeches of some kind, crawling upward. He narrowed his eyes, looking more closely and realized what it was he was looking at. He held up his other hand, cautioning the others to stay back and he slowly turned back toward the chum bags.

It started with a single bag, a small lump inside moving around as if a rat had been trapped inside with the remains. The lump grew, and the bag wobbled to and fro. The next bag picked up the rhythm, and then the next until the entire pile was jerking rapidly. The chum bags began to expand, the soft slurry inside coalescing and pulling itself back together. The baling wire was holding around the bags for now, but they would not hold for long. Cholly signaled up to the rooftop ‘Rat snipers to hold their fire – he knew none of them would jump the shot out of fear, but he intended to remind them nonetheless.

It was quiet but for the sickening wet sucking writhing noises coming from the bags. Daud sent out a thought to Thomas and Billie _burn the fucker_ , and they both nodded and told Cholly quietly what needed to be done. They jogged over to the workshop shed with Cholly and each grabbed a bottle of refined whale oil. They ran over to the chum bags and began splashing the oil over them. The bags had begun to roll about, and when the oil hit them, the guts inside began jerking wildly and making horrific noises – the sound of air being forced through layers of wet viscera and gritty bits of shattered bone, small gasping screams with no mouth to form them.

H.H.’s hand ground hard into Daud’s own and when Cholly struck the flint to the pile of bags they exploded into flames and the disembodied shrieking rose to a fever pitch. Daud’s head filled with waves of agonizing pain. Every piece of him inside and out was on fire – he was feeling what H.H. was feeling – thinking H.H.'s shattered thoughts, and it was unspeakable, incomprehensible. Each and every bit of what they had scraped up of him was still alive! The hand was deliberately sharing the pain of being burned alive, burned from the inside out and able to _feel_ from each and every single broken piece of nerves as the many surfaces of H.H. hissed and spat as they cooked. Each piece, each glob of fat or gristle or bone felt the pain individually. Down to the microscopic bits, each part was its own entity burning and burning and all of the pieces of H.H. – all that he was screamed at an ever sharply rising frequency. Daud didn’t realize he was screaming until he shook off what shock he could and saw Thomas on his knees, ghostly pale jamming his hands over his ears. Billie was kneeling - ashen and pale, covering one ear while blood leaked from the other. Cholly was wobbling across the yard, with Joplin’s arm thrown over his shoulder dragging the semi-conscious boy back to the safety of the ‘Rat hole.

Daud staggered as he tried to bend to wipe the living pieces of H.H. from his legs. He caught his footing, and with his free hand tore the bits from his pants leg and one by one threw them into the pyre. Each time he did, the burning pain flared anew – the cycle of pain starting fresh for these gobbets, and for Daud. The pain was nothing like Daud had ever felt. There was no part of him that was not feeling the agony of being cooked alive. He tried to pull the hand off again, finally reaching down with his teeth to bite the goddamned thing. The hand jerked reflexively, and fell from Daud’s own. The pain shut off immediately, and the screaming stopped so suddenly that Daud thought he must have been struck deaf. The hand was inching its way through the dirt back to Daud, trying to find a hold to climb up him. Daud jumped back, knowing that once that hand found a hold on him it would clamp right back down. Would it be his marked hand again? His throat? His balls? He did not want find out, and carefully positioned his boot over the wrist and slammed his foot down pinning the hand behind its dangerous end as one would pin a poisonous snake.

Billie stood slowly, and Thomas did as well. There were no ‘Rats on the roof now. Cholly had evidently signaled them all back inside. They could not see any faces at the windows, and for that they were grateful – no kid, not even a tough one like a ‘Rat should have to see something like this. Daud motioned for Thomas to bring him a fresh bag, and Thomas did. They batted the hand into the bag where it scrabbled madly around the inside of the bag trying to punch and claw its way out. Daud picked up the bag, tied it off in a thick knot and handed it to Thomas, who held it carefully at a distance as he looped baling wire around the knot. The pile of chum bags was still burning, but the only squealing coming from them now was the sound of meat swelling and hissing from cooking, the fat popping and joints bursting from the heat. When Daud’s mind cleared, he realized now why the ‘Rats were all inside. The smell coming from the bonfire of cooking meat was nauseating, strangely sweet smelling.

Billie and Thomas seemed ok, shaken but otherwise fine. The three of them stood quietly, smoking cigarettes that Daud pulled from the packet in his coat pocket. They did not speak. There was not much to say. They had planned on a disposal by strid for H.H. but fire seemed to have done the trick. Daud sent out his thoughts to them between drags on his cigarette – they would stay and replenish the whale oil until the chum bags were charcoal and there was no evidence of movement. Daud spoke, his voice hoarse from screaming, and said that after they were done here he was going to go back to the lab and do some research. Billie and Thomas were welcome to head back to Daud’s place or the 'Flask while he worked if they liked. They declined, and made a compromise. They would all stop by the lab together, lock up the hand in Daud’s safe, and then all head to the ‘Flask for a drink and then take it from there. It was an agreement that was satisfactory to all.

Daud asked Thomas to take the hand and head inside to check on Cholly and Joplin, and he asked Billie if she was ok. Her skin was not as gray-looking and her face was slowly flushing back up with a healthier tone. He took her face gently in his hands, and turned her head to look into her ear. There was not as much blood as he thought as he lightly tugged down her earlobe and peered into her ear, and there didn’t seem to be any evidence of hearing loss. “Rose is next.” Billie said, and Daud nodded as he took his hands from her face. He told her to go inside, and help check on the others. There didn’t seem to be any particular danger now, and all that was left to do was to keep stoking the fire until there was nothing left to burn. It would take a while yet. Billie didn’t want to leave him, but agreed to go inside leaving Daud to his thoughts as he finished his cigarette.

He looked around the yard, and saw no one. No one on the rooftops, no lookouts at the flanks of the building. It was quiet, and it was just what Daud needed to gather his thoughts and work out a plan for the rest of the evening. It would be late afternoon by the time they were done here, and after they ate (if anyone was able to after this) he knew they would be too tired to do anything except sit up on his building rooftop and drink. Daud wasn’t sure where to find Rose, but something told him that he wouldn’t have to. She would find him. 

Daud lit another cigarette – smoking compulsively to keep his composure with the familiar smell and comforting motions of smoking, and as he was taking his first drag he felt an electric tingling dancing around him sending his hairs on edge, and the air went heavy as quicksilver as the dead copper smell of the Void filled his senses. Time slowed, the air tipped into a bluish haze and everything around him went still as the Void touched and opened to this place. Daud braced himself for what he knew was coming – the Outsider was overdue a visit in this madness. Daud had a few things he wanted to discuss with the Outsider, and this was as good a time and place as any.


	66. The Knife, The Rose and The Hammer

There was a small pop, and Rose appeared out of the thick air not more than a foot away from Daud’s face. Daud had been prepared for the Outsider, but not Rose. He knew she would find him – he just hadn’t counted on it so soon. He didn’t move or flinch. Surprised or not, he wasn’t about to let this bitch rattle him. He drew in slowly on his cigarette, and then blew the smoke in a long deliberate plume right down in her upturned face. He steadied his voice to his usual gruff indifference. “What the fuck do you want.” From a deep place in his mind he called his Whalers to his side _Billie, Thomas - to me, NOW._ He felt the thread of his thoughts leave his mind only to fall dead at his feet.

“Ah, ah, ah Daud” she said, wagging a finger saucily in his face. “This is between you and me.” She walked around him through the still air and looked down into the pile of H.H. bags. The flames had frozen in the bent time, and the smoke hung immobile in the air. She put her hands on her hips and turned to Daud, vexed but with a hint of smile playing around her lips. She asked if he got it all, and Daud said “sure did” not looking at her. “Daud.” He turned and looked at her, and she knelt slightly beside the burnt bags and ran her hands over them, through the frozen shimmers of heat and the still licks of flame. Rose swept her hand and cleared the flames in a scatter of razor sharp orange and blue shards that vaporized instantly. She was daring him with her eyes to take another step, and Daud did not take her up on it.

He watched as a green mist – very much like the sort that H.H.’s rats had exploded into up at the castle ruins – seeped up from the ground like swamp gas and slowly wound itself throughout the pile.

The bags suddenly burst into horrific life, and the screaming started anew. This time there was a sharp cracking, ripping and grinding coming from inside the bags, and the screaming from the bags intensified. Rose simply smiled, humming while she danced her hand over the pile guiding the green wisps in a shimmering dance. The bags stretched, fattened, and then burst. Daud did not move, _could_ not move, as he watched the various pieces of H.H. crawl from the bags, creeping along the dirt shedding thick crusts of dirt and cooked meat. His new parts emerged from their burnt crusts wet and pink, the skin slimy-translucent, blue veins growing and streaking in all directions under the new skin. Each bit of gut found its mates, and from the bottom up, H.H. again grew from a skeletal tree – this time into a glistening pink fetal man, the features extruding from the soft newborn flesh and hardening into familiarity. The sounds that his body was making while coming back to life were beyond anything Daud had ever heard, or could have imagined.

Daud had heard every sort of death – the sighs at the end forming the names of loved ones – mothers, daughters, husbands, lovers, the rattles of those so deeply throat-cut that words were not possible, the strictures gasped through bubbles of blood from ruined masks, the flatulent gut wounds spilling stench, but the sound of this death reversing was grossly copulatory and fecund - obscene, wet, sucking. H.H. finally finished forming and then stretched, running his hands through his wet hair, looking down at himself and then over to Rose as he wiped down glistening fluid and thick vernix from himself. “Fuck’s sake Sweetheart, couldn’t you at least have made my dick bigger?” He leered at Rose as he wiped his cock down roughly with both hands bringing it to half-mast, and caught Daud staring intently at him. H.H. winked at Daud, stroking himself again. “Like what you see, old man?” Daud stared closely – not at H.H.’s cock, but at his _hand_. His right hand had come back bearing no mark. Had it been an oversight?

“Go now. Go on – you know where to go” Rose said to H.H. “Yes, Love,” he said and nodded and bowed deeply to her in a mockery of an aristocratic curtsey and blinked from sight. The thick veil of bent time dropped, and the air lifted back into place – the smell of the Void displaced by the acrid smell blowing down from the Hemlock Processing plant up the way a bit. Daud brought his cigarette back to his mouth, but it had gone out. He had forgotten all about it.

From the corner of his vision behind Rose, he could see someone coming up the path to the ‘Rat hole, someone he wasn’t expecting to see but was more than glad to see coming up the path. Daud needed to keep Rose distracted. Now was not the time or place to take her down, not without knowing more about what he was up against. His Whalers and the ‘Rats were safely inside, and he did not want anyone else caught in any crossfire. He casually relit the cigarette, steeling himself. He needed to catch her off guard and keep her there. “You got what you wanted. Now, fuck off.” He observed the slightest bit of change in her face. Something twitched underneath her features and her smile lost perhaps a watt, maybe two.

Rose’s face cleared quickly, and she pasted her toothy wide smile back onto her face quickly hiding whatever crack of weakness Daud had managed to find inside her. Daud had rattled her. He wasn’t sure how, or why what he said affected her but he was going to exploit it as much as he could.

“Now Daud, there’s no need to be ugly about it.” She reached up as if to touch his face, and he jerked his head back, glaring down at her. “Don’t touch me.” Again, the tiniest ripple in her features. He needed to keep Rose where she was, anything to keep her from turning around. Only a few more seconds now. _hurry hurry hurry_ … He kept his eyes to Rose’s and took a step closer to her, hoping that he was sending the right signals. This wasn’t something he was accustomed to doing. He saw her face shift in confusion, and then he drew his face close to hers saying in a low voice near her ear. “ **I** do the touching.” He felt a mild twist of revulsion in his guts as he brought his hands to her waist, gripped it firmly and pulled her close but he could see from the change in her features that he had been convincing, very much so evidently. He tightened his grip on her waist, and brought his face closer down to hers and when Rose closed her eyes and parted her lips to receive him Lib Fury brought the sleggja down hard on the top of her skull with a wet crunch, crushing it nearly down to the level of her nose, spraying Daud liberally across the face with blood and brain-flecked fluid.

Rose dropped like a sack of dead meat and Daud watched her fall heavily to the ground, her face in the dirt. When Daud brought his eyes up, he was met with Lib’s stony glare. She stood over Rose’s body, legs braced slightly out and the blood-wet sleggja held loosely in her hand, the other hand in a tight fist. Lib had clearly reached her limit on the amount of shit she was willing to put up with, and for a second Daud thought he was going to be next. He stepped back from Rose, and Lib stepped back as well. Neither seemed to know what to say or how to start, but they didn’t have much time to consider it.

Rose stirred at their feet, and then stood easily as the deep crevasse in her head popped back out neatly, and the bloody viscera melted from her skin in small black wisps. She stood between them, not a hair out of place. She looked back and forth at the two of them, her eyes streaking black, full of fire and rage and raised her hand in a gesture. She stopped, and tilted her head, listening to something that Daud and Lib could not hear, and then swearing, disappeared from their sight.

Lib spat on the ground where Rose had fallen, and scrubbed her foot hard into the dirt and swore in Tyvian. Daud caught enough of the meaning to know that Lib knew more of this situation than he had expected. “Lib, let’s go inside. There are many things we need to talk about.” Lib replied, “I should say so, Mr. _Daud._ ” and followed him inside the ‘Rat hole.


	67. Debriefing in the Aftermath

Daud and Lib walked into the ‘Rat hole, and found Thomas swaggering around swinging the large cleaver doing his best Slackjaw for the younger ‘Rats. The older ‘Rats were pretending not to watch, but were clearly getting as much enjoyment out of it as the younger ones. “Aye, yes young ‘Rats ol’ Slackjaw knows what yer up to out here, yes he does.” After what many of the ‘Rats had witnessed earlier, Daud reckoned that humor in a time like this was not entirely out of place. He and Lib walked in quietly, catching Billie and Cholly’s eye. Daud nodded to Billie, and she and Cholly came over to join them. They watched the fun for a few minutes, and Thomas finally finished up, promising another show later. Lottie had come down into the common room to watch, and as Thomas, Lurk, Cholly, Daud and Lib headed down to the basement Lottie corralled the younger ones and set them on various small tasks around the ‘Rat hole to keep them busy.

Down in the basement, Daud had expected everyone to start talking at once but it was quiet. Since no one seemed to want to start, Daud started the conversation much as he would any debriefing. He asked Cholly for a status on Joplin, and Cholly told him that he was resting in one of the upstairs bedrooms. He hadn’t been able to get much out of him, but the screaming seemed to have affected him in similar ways to Billie and Thomas. Cholly had heard the screaming, but it hadn’t knocked him out in quite the same way it had Joplin. Daud wondered if it was Joplin’s proximity to the marked hand, but decided to save that line of questions for Joplin when the boy was feeling up to it.

Next was Billie and Thomas. They both reported that after the screaming had stopped, they felt weak but otherwise ok. Neither had any lasting effects that they were able to notice.

Daud turned to Lib, and gave her proper introduction to Billie and Thomas. Lib wasn’t surprised to hear who they really were given the circumstances. Lib shifted uncomfortably where she stood, and said that she had a great deal to talk about that might help shed some light on the situation, and she began to talk.

**************

I was there at the ‘Flask the night that Rose met with H.H. with her plan. I listened to them talking, and heard everything they were talking about. Rose told H.H. that she had found the Assassin Daud of the Dunwall Whalers, and tracked him to the Baleton ‘Wilds and that Lily had not died, but instead had joined forces with Daud in an effort to wipe out the ‘Rats and take over. She gave him the impression that Daud was planning on sacrificing the young ones with Lily’s help. What’s that Cholly? Yes, Lily is alive. Rose was right in a sense about her working for Daud. She’s been Mr. Merrock’s live-in help for a couple of years now. You probably passed her a number of times in the street and never noticed. She doesn’t look the same as you remember her. Well, especially not now but I’ll come back to that. What? No, I don’t know why she left the ‘Rats but I can tell you that I’m glad that she did. Did you know she is going to school now? Yes, that’s right. She was afraid for a long time that H.H. was going to come for her, and for good reason. What’s that you ‘Rats say – that you can never leave? Is it a surprise that she faked her death? You know her, Cholly. You tell me, do you doubt she could have pulled it off? Didn’t think so. I’ll get to the matter of it. I just came back from the Wilds and was stopping by here on my way back to town to check in on Lottie. I was with Lily there in the Wilds. She is in serious trouble, and I don’t know how to even start in telling you how much.

I followed H.H. and Rose up to the Traehorne castle ruins many nights. I watched them together. She was training him in some sort of black magic abilities – abilities that I have to admit I doubted truly existed until I saw them with my own eyes. Yes, Hearne? Ah – well, she taught him how to move from one place to the next by disappearing from one place and appearing at the next. It fucked him up pretty bad though, and he didn’t do it often. Well, it’s hard to explain. It seemed to really take the piss out of him. When he disappeared and reappeared he was usually bleeding from his nose and eyes – sometimes his ears. Had trouble walking after. He could also send out some kind of vine or rope or something from his hand that he could grab things with. He didn’t seem very good at it though. The worst was this swarm he brought up from the ground. I only saw him do it once. I think they were rats, but I’m not sure. They were alive, but rotting and messed up in ways that no creature could be and still live. They stank – never smelled anything like it and trust me, I’ve worked in places where I never thought the smell could be topped. There wasn’t much more than that from him.

Rose, now Rose is the far more dangerous one. She can send up these things from the ground, how do you call them – kracken arms, tentacles – yes. They are tentacles, but they have thorns all around them and they look to be able to strip the skin with a touch. She can disappear and reappear also – you saw that just now, Hearne. Meagan, hold on – Hearne will tell you more about that. Hearne, I hope you don’t mind if I still call you that – I don’t really know you as anything else. I’m not sure what else Rose can do, only that she is able to control H.H. in a way that I can’t explain. He wasn’t the same after meeting her. I don’t mean that sort of change that comes when a man moves on to another woman – I mean some deep down change that makes me question if it is even him anymore. He nearly killed one of his own ‘Rats, a little one. He never would have done that before. When he and Rose were together, he talked about how he was going to kill Lily himself and before all of this I wouldn’t have believed it even if he did catch her. I don’t think he would have had the heart to. What? No, he didn’t care for her in that way – not that I know of but it was clear that she had a special place in the ‘Rats. That’s right, Cholly – I’m not meaning to offend in any way but she probably would have been his second had she stayed. You were both meant to be more. It’s possible to have two seconds, wouldn’t you say Meagan, Thomas? Oh, I can see that I’ve hit a sore spot. I mean no offense. I’m not here to talk about that though. I’ve reached the hard part. Give me a moment. What’s that Meagan? Yes, I surely will have a drink. A cigarette too, if you please. Yes, I do smoke from time to time. Thank you.

There is no way to say this but plainly. Lily is pregnant. Wait! Stop! Sit down and **shut up** , all of you. Not another word. I mean it. It is not natural, this pregnancy. No, I don’t mean like that – I mean that it is physically unnatural. She is weeks away from giving birth. Yes, I am absolutely sure. I have spent the better part of the past few days with her at the Lodge. Yes, Hearne – the ‘old lady’s’ place though you’d do well to be a bit more respectful. I took Lily out there to stay in some cabin that she had squatted in from time to time over the years. Yes, Hearne I know now that it belongs to you. Yes, she was fine the day we left Baleton, or as fine as she could get having learned that she had been found out by H.H. Yes, she knew who you were when we left but she didn’t mention it until later. Oh, you got a note from her? I wondered what she went back upstairs for.

I got her settled in and the next day the ‘Wilds folk found Lily hugely pregnant and kneeling at the water pump gorging herself on dirt – mud, clay whatever. She fainted, and the Elder woman had her brought to the Lodge for care. Hm, Meagan? Yes, it is very much like a hospital – all of the women from the ‘Flask go there for women’s care. Lily has gone from not-pregnant to within weeks of giving birth overnight, do you understand what I am telling you? The ladies cleaned her up, but had to shear her hair – when they found her they said that she appeared to have not bathed for months. Her hair was clumped and matted, no saving it.

There is much the Elder woman spoke of that I am just too tired to get my head around right now but I will try. Lily talked about dreams she had been having. Eh, Hearne? No, not the Outsider – it was the Void but the one under the strid. Yes, I know how ridiculous that sounds but the Void isn’t just one place. This Void the Outsider for whatever reason can’t go to. The Elder woman reckons it is the part that belongs to their sleeping god. Lily talked about frog-fish men, yes Cholly – the very same that the old stories are about. I guess they _are_ real, in a sense. Lily saw a tower down there, and at the top of it she said she saw the red-haired woman – this Rose and she was up there messing with a man with a wolf-head. Hm? Well, they were up there fucking to put it bluntly.

Oh, and _how_ that made the Elder woman mad. She tried to tamp it down some, but she was furious. She became very angry when Lily talked about the circles carved up there. Yes, something like that, Meagan. She said they had strange glowing writing or symbols coming out of them like spokes on a wheel, and there were charms there fitted into places in the circle. Yes, I’d heard about the covens. It does sound a bit like that. The thing that set the Elder woman off though the most was probably when Lily told her that when Rose started talking to her under there, her voice sounded like buzzing or clicking.

The Elder woman was quiet after that, just fuming. I think that she thought that whatever this Rose was, and whoever the wolf-head man was they had no business trespassing, much less in such a vulgar way down there in that Void. It’d be a bit like a Hatter or a Bottler going to your hideout there in Dunwall when you all were still there, and having a whiskey and cigar party there while fucking common whores on every surface they could rut on. Gross, yes. She felt it was a violation on the same level, I’m sure of it. Lily had more dreams, ones about her mother – yes, Rose Everleigh and I’ll say it plainly – this Rose is _not_ Rose Everleigh. In one of the dreams, her mother turned into Rose and Rose told her a story about an assassin with the heart of a wolf who killed an empress, but saved her daughter from a witch. What?! Hearne, I’m sorry but I find that hard to believe. You definitely need to tell me that story later. Rose told Lily that you were Daud, and that you drugged her and then you took her by force. Rose put a memory there in her head, and Lily didn’t say so but I can tell you from the look on her face when she was telling that story that Rose made sure that it hurt.

Hearne. Hearne, no no - look at me. There is something you need to know. Look at me! They examined Lily when they brought her in, and she was _intact_. Do you know what that means? What? How can you not… nevermind. It means that she fell pregnant without having, without you… dammit, it means you didn’t fuck her! No one has. It means that she is a virgin, Hearne. Yes, absolutely certain. The Elder woman reckons that Rose acted as a proxy. Well, I suppose it _could_ mean you fucked Rose instead, but … it is very confusing to me, but it doesn’t seem that any of it was really a physical thing. It was meant to appear that way, but the Elder woman is convinced that all of it was by proxy – it was between Rose and the wolf-head man, not you and Lily. Your bodies were used in some way by them that resulted in a child that couldn’t possibly happen between you.

The child _is_ yours, technically. It will carry your bloodline and Lily’s. Ach, I don’t know. You will have to talk to the Elder woman, Hearne. She can tell you so much more than I can about this. I was listening, but I was not able to really understand it. I wanted to kill you, yes I did - but after I talked to the Elder woman it was clear that this is not a natural thing. You must talk to her. Yes, all of you. This child, it… it isn’t, I don’t think it is human. What? I’m not sure. I think it will look like any other human child, but the Elder woman said that the child would carry the powers of three gods within – three gods that stand opposed to one another. Yes, the Outsider is one of them – or rather, the one she calls Ctoggha. The other she says is some dark ‘other’ – something that she can’t identify and thinks is Rose, and she is certain the third is the ones the Wilds folk call the ‘sleeping god’. I have no idea, to be honest. Like I said, you need to talk to her. I know she will talk to you. She will not want you at the Lodge, Hearne, but I am certain she would be willing to meet you on neutral ground.

Yes, I knew Rose Everleigh well. No, that thing that calls itself Rose is not Rose Everleigh. It favors her, sure – but it isn’t her. The Elder woman asked if Rose Everleigh had dealings with the Outsider in the past, but if she did I never noticed anything of the sort. The night she died, she told everyone that her man was coming to take her and Lily away and live as a family. I’m not sure, she never talked about him. Just said that he was young, handsome and had dark eyes. The only place she went, though was off the top of the lighthouse. No, I’m not even sure he was real to be honest. Rose had a hard life coming up, and no one had the heart to question it. The only other person that came up was Cora Pearl, but her dealings with Piero Joplin seemed to me to be more about common perversion than black magic.

Oh, I nearly forgot – Lily said she met someone down in the Void under the strid. It was a girl that told Lily that she was sent there by the Outsider to help Lily in exchange for being able to be with her lover Billy again … Billie. Wait. Meagan - Billie, do you know someone named Deidre?

Hey! Meagan, come back! I didn’t mean… can someone go check on her? What did I say? Is she going to be alright? Hearne, I’d never hurt Meagan you know that. Ah, I didn’t know about that. Thank you for telling me that, Hearne. I suppose she will talk about it when she is ready. No, I think I’m done. I need to sleep. Lily is going to be just fine out there. The Elder woman has eyes on that place every hour of the day and night. I am going to go back out there and check on her not tomorrow but the day after. Yes, I am sure. She has plenty to eat, warm clothes, adequate protection, and she is a short walk away from the Lodge should … should anything happen. I should get going, Hearne. Cholly, I’ll come back and check in on Lottie tomorrow. No, Hearne – not tonight. I am not going anywhere except straight to my bunk at the ‘Flask. I’m sorry but whatever you can turn up tonight you can fill me in on tomorrow. Thank you, but I’ll show myself out.

****

**************

Cholly excused himself as well, and went up to check on Billie. Daud sat alone in the basement turning this new information over in his head. As much as he tried to focus on it, he could simply not bring himself to think about Lily. About this child. _His_ child. No, he simply could not accept it right now. Right now, he needed to get back to Stridside and do some research. He had to find out more about this mark on H.H.’s hand, and figure out how to use it against Rose. He knew now that she was not human. She was far beyond anything Delilah had ever been, or could have hoped to be. No, Rose was closer in nature to the Outsider in some way. The idea of killing a god was ridiculous. What exactly would you kill it with? A god could only be killed by another god presumably – but what if there were a way to somehow use it against itself? He had this hand and her mark. There was bound to be a way, and Daud was determined to find it. He was going to kill this bitch, and his vision tinged red around the edges as he found himself looking forward to all the many ways he planned to make it hurt before he allowed her to die.


	68. Part 7: The Enemy of my Enemy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Daud: Research and Reminisces**

Where was that damned book? Daud had spent the better part of an hour going through his entire inventory at his shop and hadn’t found it. He was sure he still had it, and he was convinced it held some piece of the puzzle that was critical to finding out more about Rose. Billie and Thomas were going to be here soon, and he wanted to have it for them to look at as well, if they were sober enough to do so, that is. When he left them at the ‘Flask, they were well into their third round. They hadn’t felt like eating, and after Daud finished his first round he left telling them to take their time and that he would have something for them when they got to the shop. He supposed he could check the basement again, though he hadn’t found it the first time he checked.

He walked down to the basement, savoring the ever-growing sensation of power coming from the odd area under the stairs in his lab. Each time he got within a certain distance of it he felt stronger, more clear-headed. The only drawback was that it increased the ringing in his ears that he had woken up with a couple of days ago after that horrible dream about Lily. It made sense now, his dream. He must have known on some level that she was pregnant, some deep subconscious fear that had bubbled up into his dream. It was hard for him to consider, to think about even given the notion that perhaps they had not made that connection physically. The idea of proxies were not new to Daud, which is why he had to find that damned book.

He remembered studying it after he had stolen it from Sokolov’s rooms at the Academy. It outlined a ritual to summon the Outsider – or rather, the entity that wore the Outsider as a cloak. The Thing behind the Outsider’s eyes was old, older than time but could be summoned by using a proxy. The language in the book had been hard to translate, but Daud had been able to suss out the general idea. It involved finding a woman to act as a blank template, a clean empty vessel in which to offer as a proxy to an entity similar to the Outsider, and in turn this entity would call out to the Outsider and he would be compelled to answer the call. This entity was referred to as ‘female’, but it was no more female than the Outsider was male. The entities existed and operated outside of human capability to understand their nature, and even though the author of the ritual had figured out the secret of the summoning, he (or she, it was unclear and the author lost to history) was limited by the closest thing that was in his understanding: the male and female counterparts, but even that was inadequate in explaining. It was far more complicated than that. The entities were not connected per se, but carried in each other some lost part of the other. They were both of the Aethyr realm, the Dreamlands – or, the Void, as it is known but from vastly different parts of it. Daud knew about the Outsider’s Void, of course but hearing Lib’s story he began to come to a greater understanding about this ‘other’.

The Void of the Outsider was sterility, cold dry dust and long-dead withered remnants of life – no water and only rock, and this ‘other’ seemed to operate in a Void of dark water, warm soft slime and fertility – birth from darkness, from water - the generation of flesh from primordial slime. The description of Rose’s realm under the strid sounded similar to the Water realm of the sleeping god of the Wilds, but that particular entity had little, if anything to do with fertility. No, the sleeping god was about death by water, the soft sodden rot of undersea decomposition and bones picked clean by deep fathomless currents. Were those two connected in some way by the factor of water?

He could understand why the Elder woman had been so furious as to imagine Rose down there in the soft gloom of her sleeping god, desecrating its part of the Void. It was not something that happened, not in any of the studies he had ever undertaken. He had never found a single instance, or even mention of the entities entering the realms of the others. They always used physical proxies to meet on objective common ground, usually to spend eons beating the shit out of each other – battling over things far beyond any human understanding.

So what was this then? Alliances did not happen in that dimension of existence, but something had brought the entities together, and in their terrible and incomprehensible way had created an intermingled proxy, an unspeakable chimaera using Daud and Lily to do so. Daud did not want to think about the fact that his bond had been taken from him, and in all likelihood implanted in this child. The implications of this child, this _being_ able to use the arcane bond to share innately incompatible abilities and powers was horrifying. What would this child be when it was born? Would it wear the features of himself and Lily, or the mind-shattering features of the entities that forced it into being? It made him sick to think about, and though the obvious solution was to kill this child before it could be born, Daud could not make himself even consider it. There was something deep inside of his brain that clicked shut if he tried to consider it – something that clicked shut without his conscious effort or decision to do so. He shuddered, thinking that this child – even in its unborn state, was self-preserving enough to reach out through their shared blood to protect itself. He sincerely hoped that whatever blood-bond he imagined with it – this child, this _thing_ \- was just that: an imagining.

It made sense that the differences between the entities – so called Ctoggha and… dammit, he couldn’t remember what the other was called - would be seen as ‘male’ and ‘female’. Daud could understand himself being used as a proxy, as he himself was a proxy of the Outsider via his mark. What he didn’t understand was why it used Lily. She was Rose’s daughter, but Rose Everleigh was not a proxy – at least he didn’t see any evidence of it. Her ‘young dark-eyed lover’ did bring to mind the Outsider, but if she was involved with the Outsider in any way it did not make sense that she would be connected with the ‘other’ as well.

Daud knew enough from his studies over the years that the entities were not ‘friends’ and even though the pairing of these two Void creatures was presented in human terms and limited understanding as ‘lovers’ or at the very least ‘rutting partners’, they were - and always would be - enemies. That was just the nature of the entities, even these two that carried some lost part of each other inside of themselves. Each was its own god, and godhood did not allow for sharing regardless of that unusual connection between the two. It was hard enough to imagine that these entities would operate on such a crude human biological level as to create a child – the idea of a child imbued with the mingled stuff of enemy entities was unthinkable, however. It just didn’t happen that way. Or did it? He would need to find the book, and do a closer reading. There had been plenty of diagrams of the various sigils associated with each entity in the book, but he could not call a single one of them to mind.

After the second sweep of the basement, Daud sat down hard in one of the chairs around the table there. He lit a cigarette, and poured himself a long dram of Orbon and set to clearing his mind. If he could empty his mind of this mental clutter and slow it down enough, perhaps he could dredge up the memories of where he last saw the book and go from there. He closed his eyes and breathed in and out deeply, increasing the count on each inhale and exhale. Soon his mind cleared, only the smoke and liquor fumes lingering in the forefront of his mind. Think back, every detail, remember every detail, think back to that time when you …

***** Dunwall, 1830 *****

… finally found it. The hideout was largely dingy, dusty and mildewed but Daud kept his rooms as dry as possible to protect his belongings, particularly his books. He didn’t have many left – books were deadweight for the most part, but there had been a handful from his days at the Academy that he simply would not part with. Out of the ones he owned, there was one in particular that he treasured above all others – a book so incredibly rare, that it’s very existence was a topic of much debate among academics and Abbeymen. It was a summoning ritual, one that Daud had spent much time bent over busily (and frustratingly) translating over the course of many late nights in the Academy library. He had nicked it from Sokolov, but if Sokolov had noticed it missing he never made mention of it.

Daud had forgotten where he stashed it here in the hideout, but eventually found the book on the bottom shelf of his modest bookshelf hidden behind the row of books there. He kept this book wrapped in coarse cloth that had been dredged in a desiccant to protect it from the damp that seemed to permeate every inch of Dunwall inside and out. The book was not fragile by any means, though it was very old but Daud intended to make sure it stayed preserved. He had no intention of actually using it, given the nature of the summoning but hoarded it nonetheless. He did not want to lend it out, but Martin had become increasingly persistent in his determination to find his way to the Outsider. Daud knew that there was nothing Martin could do on his own to compel the Outsider. The Outsider appeared to those whom he found interesting, and Martin was evidently not interesting even given his colorful past and current tenure as an Overseer. Perhaps this book though, would give Martin what he needed. Daud was not sure if the summoning ritual would work, but if it would get Martin off his back while he tried it would work well enough.

Daud had enough on his mind right now – too much to worry about Martin’s futile search for the Outsider. He had taken an unusual contract from a Karnacan-born aristocrat married to an old eccentric Academy man from Dunwall, who had conveniently just left everything to her in the latest iteration of his will, and had adjusted some of the key stipulations of it in her favor. Seemed she wanted to make sure that he died before the ink had time to dry on the documents. She had insinuated to Daud that he enjoyed the game of floating different versions of his will above the heads of his family members and of his wife to keep them where he wanted them. Daud had spent days trying to work out the best way to make it work as planned. He had only about a week to prepare for it and time was running out. Usually his contracts were straightforward. Go in, kill undetected, leave. Easy enough. This one though, had to be set up to look like a suicide. No, not a simple one. This woman had been very specific about the method – she wanted her husband poisoned in such a way that appeared he had done it to himself.

Had it been a simple poison, it wouldn’t have been so complicated but for some reason the woman had chosen chloroform of all things and she wanted it to appear as if he had drunk it. Daud almost turned down the contract then and there, but the offer was just too good. She offered him nearly double his going rate before the negotiations even started. By the time their discussion came to a close, he was looking at a good _four_ times the amount he would have expected. Chloroform was unforgiving. It was highly corrosive. If swallowed, it would burn and erode the soft tissues all the way down. She really wanted the bastard to suffer. Daud was more than happy to accommodate. He just had to figure out how to compel him to swallow it. She had provided five small bottles of chloroform – more than enough. One bottle was going to hard enough to convince him to swallow, but even with the many methods Daud used to bend people to his will – he couldn’t imagine that it would be enough to get him past a single swallow, much less five bottles regardless of how small they were. No, this would take some finesse especially since it could not appear to have been forced on him, or administered while unconscious.

Daud had already decided that this was going to be a two-man job, and he chose his newest recruit Billie Lurk to accompany him. She was very young and had only been with him not quite a year, but he already saw in her the makings of an assassin that surpassed Whalers that had been in his employ for years. He had personally taken up her training, something that Daud rarely did – and never before with a woman. There was something different about her, and he had seen in her mind the type of temperament and strength of will that he rarely saw in people. She had a way of figuring things out that was unique. If he came up against a problem, she was quick to provide a solution that had not occurred to him. If anyone would know the best way to make this chloroform suicide look convincing, it would be Lurk.

He leaned out of his doorway and gestured over one of his Whalers to go find Lurk and bring her to him. He had a simple job for her, and when she got back he’d discuss this more complex one. He wanted to gauge her reaction to being asked to do something mundane – no better time than the present to have her deliver this book to Martin. He wrapped it in plain brown paper, crosstwined it and wrote a quick note in his spidery scratchy handwriting ‘Remember the Eighth Stricture’, folded it and slipped it in the crosstwine. As an Overseer, Martin would surely understand the reference. The eighth stricture was highly controversial – few Overseers even knew about it, as the existence of it had been carefully scrubbed from the strictures over the years. Daud knew about it through his studies, and it was a clear warning against what would happen when one consistently and willfully lacked the courage to act for the right reason, in the right way, at the right time (‘right’ being purely subjective, of course). Sophisticated cowardice was wrought with justification and sweet comforting lies told to one’s self that laid down a straight and clear path directly to the destruction of the will. It was a long way down on a slippery slope, and the only thing at the end of that path was suicide. If Martin wanted that badly to reach the Outsider, he had better be sure – particularly since he was an Overseer. Daud knew that Martin was well aware of the The Metaphysika Mysterium and the heresy loophole it offered as a path to the powers and abilities of the Void. Martin evidently was choosing to dance even closer to the fire than that. What exactly would he do if he succeeded in this summoning? He tried to imagine what it would be like for the Outsider to find himself pulled into this world at the whim of a man – an Overseer, no less. Daud doubted it would work, but even _considering_ taking on such a summoning was not something that was to be taken lightly. Martin would not get to shake the devil’s hand and say he was only kidding.

Lurk came to him, excited as always to be called upon personally. When he asked her to deliver a package to the Old Port District, there was only the faintest shadow of resentment. Faint enough for Daud to let it pass. He instructed her on where to go, and gave her the coded pattern to use to knock. He did not tell her who the delivery was for, and he knew that as much as she wanted to ask she would not. She had learned quickly when to question, and when to reserve her questions. She would not recognize Martin as an Overseer, unless he was fool enough to answer his door in uniform. She returned not long after, expressing a gratefulness at being entrusted with such a task and she meant it. Daud knew she was ready for the real mark.

Later in the week, Daud and Billie initiated the contract. It went as planned, and Billie’s idea worked beautifully. They had entered a window on the top floor, carefully sliding it up. The soon-to-be widow did not want to know when it was happening. The old man had been sitting at his desk, writing something and his wife lay sleeping in bed just a few feet away. The old man did not hear them come in, but in all fairness it would have been difficult to hear much over his wife’s snoring.

Daud had the chloroform bottles at the ready, and Billie carried a length of smooth rubber tubing with a small funnel at the end. Daud crept up behind the old man and in a swift gesture lifted his head by the jaw with one hand while pinching his nostrils closed with the other. The old man’s mouth shot open to breathe and Billie quickly and gently slid the tubing down his throat with a smooth gesture and eased it down a length or two. Daud pulled his hand away from the old man’s nose and quickly poured in the chloroform. For a moment the old man struggled and drew ragged heavy breaths in through his nose as his throat convulsed with involuntary swallowing. Daud only got four bottles in before he saw it starting to back up the tube, and slipped the fifth bottle back into his jacket pocket. Daud held the man’s head steady in a strong one-armed grip under the jaw for a few moments until he saw the man’s eyes going dim and filming over as the chloroform settled into his system. Billie slid the tubing slowly out, as to not draw the chloroform back up the man’s throat. They both carefully carried the dead man to the bed, removing his shoes and leaving them by the bed as if he had done so himself. They set the empty bottles on the nightstand, taking care to lay at least one of them on its side.

They were moving with exaggerated slowness and care, not daring to risk the huge payout by waking the snoring woman up in the middle of the murder that she had requisitioned. Once they had the body tucked in and arranged in some semblance of natural sleep, they backed away slowly and Daud walked to the desk and looked down at what the old man had been writing. It was a letter to his solicitor, requesting a meeting pertaining to the particulars of his will, and further changes that would need to be made as soon as possible. Daud took the letter, and the blank sheets under it and slipped them into his pocket intending to burn them. Billie whispered that it would be a far better idea to keep them. Never know when something like that would become _useful._ Not for the first time and certainly not for the last, Daud found himself grateful for Billie Lurk.

They had gotten not quite halfway back when Daud misjudged a transversal and just barely caught the edge of his hip on balcony railing, breaking the fifth bottle of chloroform in his jacket pocket. The chloroform did not affect Daud, but it certainly affected Billie. Even with the protection of the bond, she got giddy and high and became the teenaged girl that she was underneath her sophisticated demeanor, giggling and cutting up – teasing him as they made their way across the rooftops. Daud didn’t mind it much, as he was still high off of what was his most interesting kill yet but he found himself getting increasingly irritated as they got closer to the hideout. His tolerance for this kind of thing only went so far, and he was not happy about the chloroform bottle breaking in his pocket. He hated the smell of it, always did. They got back, and Daud sent Billie away and he quickly undressed to get the jacket off before the chloroform could soak through his shirt. His got his shirt off just in time, before the chloroform could get to his skin. He may be immune to poison and vaporous stuff like this but his skin could still suffer a nasty chemical burn. He was standing there in just his pants scrubbing his hands in his sink when Lurk barged in _without knocking_ not fifteen minutes later. Daud was livid. He did not want her, or anyone else, seeing him unclothed and he was already tired and irritated. He turned to tell her to fuck off and leave him alone, and he caught her guard down and suddenly her thoughts were laid bare and open to him. He did not acknowledge what he read in her thoughts, and turned away from her asking her quietly and firmly to leave, and thankfully she did.

The next day, Martin showed up out of nowhere – Daud heard him whistling their code down on the street, and Lurk escorted him up to Daud’s rooms. Daud did not want to deal with Martin right now. His jacket still stank of chloroform, and Lurk had been moodily skirting around him all day. He knew that she would get over whatever it was she was sulking about – he had caught her in a weak moment the night before and it had embarrassed and irritated him. Her behavior today worried him somewhat, and he was distracted. He only halfway listened to Martin, who was chattering about this and that. He left the room to get some scrub powder for his jacket and…

**************

That’s it. His trunk had been open. Martin had walked in carrying a box, and walked out without one. Daud opened his safe, and dragged his trunk out. He took everything out of it. He couldn’t remember the last time he had emptied it. Underneath his pile of discharged runes and many assorted bonecharms, a few layers down, he found things he hadn’t thought about in a long time. Some old notebooks from his Academy days. His Nancy deck with the World card missing. Underneath it all at the very bottom was a flat wooden box with a lid that had been nailed down with small tack nails. Daud wasn’t sure why Martin would have bothered to sneak the book into his trunk like this. Why didn’t he simply just give it back? When Daud pried the top of box off, and saw what was inside, he understood. He understood a number of things at that moment, all of which filled him with rage as pieces began to fall into place in his mind. There had been scant varying accounts of how Martin’s life had ended on Kingsparrow Island. In some accounts he was poisoned. In others he was murdered by Corvo Attano. There were even accounts that Martin had eaten a bullet rather than be killed by Corvo. There was much regret that Daud felt about those last days in Dunwall, and the people he chose to act and interact with during that time. At this moment, the only regret he felt about Overseer Teague Martin was that he hadn’t had the opportunity to kill him himself.


	69. Picking at the Bones of the Past

Down in the basement, Daud watched quietly sipping Orbon and smoking while Billie read Keziah Everleigh’s interrogation report and Thomas read the report on Rose Everleigh. Thomas was shocked that Overseer Martin had been involved, and it could not have been more blatantly obvious what he had been up to with Rose. How did he not get caught, or at the very least suspected? Billie closed the report on Keziah Everleigh and slid it over to Thomas without a word, her face set in a hard glare. He wasn’t sure what to expect in the file when he picked it up to read it, but by the gods it wasn’t that! Billie read through Rose’s report fairly quickly, and set that one down as well, shaking her head. “This is disgusting.” Thomas closed Keziah Everleigh’s report file and set it on the table, his face gone pale. He had known that the Overseers were brutal in their interrogation methods, but he never would have figured that they did the sorts of things like they did to Keziah Mason Everleigh. Between every line of the dry interrogation reporting lay a thick layer of perversion. Thomas didn’t need to send his imagination far to read the acts between those lines, given the nature of the reported injuries.

Daud had read them himself not more than a half hour before Billie and Thomas arrived. He read them, and then read them again stunned at what he was reading. He wasn’t surprised by the torture method used on Keziah Everleigh – he knew that High Overseer Campbell had been a deeply disturbed and perverse man, and relied on equally like-minded willing Overseers to assist. Daud had turned down more than one contract on Campbell offered by friends, family or regular clients of girls who had gone ‘missing’ or ‘found dead of illness’ after one of Campbell’s many “inspections” of the Golden Cat. It wasn’t a contract Daud would have considered regardless of coin. Corruption at the head of the Overseers suited Daud’s needs at the time. An organization was only as strong as the convictions of the person who sat at the top. Corruption begat weakness – weakness that could (and was - often) usefully exploited in a number of different ways.

What did surprise him was the extent to which Teague Martin had gone to carry out this plan. He must have thought he was being clever with this ruse. He had taken an evidently innocent girl and trumped up some excuse to ‘interrogate’ her based on what amounted to no more than a schoolgirl crush outlined in her diary. Who knows what he had done to her. He even set up her mother to be tortured – no doubt to prevent any reports of a ‘missing girl’.

Daud wondered what the burst of energy at the end of Keziah Mason Everleigh’s report had been. Whatever it was had led to her immediate execution, which was unusual. Something, some gut feeling, told Daud that Martin hadn’t been expecting that, but no doubt took full credit for ‘exposing the true heretic’. It would explain in part his relatively quick rise through the ranks from pencil-pusher to High Overseer after that event.

The burst of energy at the end of Keziah Everleigh’s torture brought to mind what he found in the interrogation room at Coldridge that time when he went to break out Lizzy Stride. The very walls and ceiling of the room had been burst open by thick vines – an explosive violent growth that had been unleashed under torture. He would have liked to have known more, but the burnt corpse of the witch still strapped to the chair was unfortunately unable to be forthcoming with answers and the audiograph he listened to didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know.

The only people who could tell him what had happened with Keziah Everleigh were dead. The only Overseer’s name he thought he recognized was Franklin – he didn’t recognize the others. They must have died in that ‘burst’, whatever it was, or had been re-assigned somewhere else after that. If he was not mistaken, Franklin was the same Overseer that he had captured and personally tortured during the time of the Overseer attacks on his base in 1837, and getting no information out of him except his name and the strictures, had shattered his shinbones with a length of heavy metal piping and thrown him in one of the shallow pit-cells at the old factory to die. Had Franklin tried to pull himself up to safety on those shattered shins? Daud didn’t know, but after seeing his name in this report hoped that Franklin lived his last hours out in pain, reflecting on which strictures would best help with the despair of knowing that the rest of his life lay just a few feet out of reach as the rats drew closer. 

When Billie and Thomas were finished reading and re-reading the reports of Rose and Keziah Everleigh, their mellow alcohol buzz had hardened into somber anger. There was no love lost between Overseers and Whalers, but Daud was certain that they were both thinking of each Whaler they knew personally that had been taken by the Overseers and what horrific tortures they must have been subjected to under Campbell had their suicide needles been confiscated. It was doubtful that Campbell’s scope of perverted torture excluded men. Daud asked them their thoughts, and Thomas answered first. He asked Daud if it had been a widespread sort of thing, and Daud assured him that it was not. There were those Overseers who tortured out of a sense of duty, others out of a sense of excitement and then there were those like Campbell who carried it several steps further and did it simply because it felt good to do so.

Daud knew Martin to be one of these sorts as well, though he couldn’t imagine it extending to his duties as an Overseer. Martin had always maintained a relatively healthy distance between the man he was and the man he hoped to become. He wondered what happened after Rose had been remanded to his custody. What had he done to her? All Daud knew was that she had shown up in Baleton sometime later, and died when she threw herself from the top of the lighthouse in 1838. Now she was part of something that seemed to circle back to those events in 1830. He made a mental note to see if he could find someone who might know more about this. Lib was sure to tell him more about Rose in general and how she came to be in Baleton, but didn’t seem to know much about her suicide. No one seemed to.

Daud took the other items out of the wooden box and slid them over to Billie and Thomas. There was Rose’s diary, heartbreaking in the innocence with which she described her infatuation with Martin. It held no clues though pertaining to anything that happened after her arrest and interrogation. The last page of the diary was torn out, but other than that the diary was not extraordinary in any way. The other item was a bonecharm – no doubt one of many that Daud knew Martin collected. It held a strong charge still, but Daud couldn’t tell what it was supposed to augment. Whatever it had been charged with didn’t pertain to any of his abilities. There had been so many of these things made for so many different reasons that this particular one would not hold any answers, and there was no time to go running down blind alleyways over mysterious bonecharms at this point. Billie and Thomas passed it between themselves and didn’t note any particular sensation from it other than it feeling ‘charged’.

Daud opened the old green book, and showed Billie and Thomas the various diagrams and sigils therein that pertained to the Outsider, or rather what was _behind_ the Outsider – Ctoggha, the nightmare-demon of the Dreamlands and an entity that acted as a sort of mirror or analogue to Ctoggha, an entity known as Yidhra – the nightmare-witch of the Dreamlands. Yidhra was represented as the female to Ctoggha’s male but it was far more complicated than that.

Daud explained that it was not possible for the human mind to truly understand the connection between the two but ‘male’ and ‘female’ was about as close as it got in literal terms. Ctoggha operated primarily in a sphere of death and the power that comes naturally from suffering. This entity, Yidhra operated in a sphere that was little more than a cycle of birth and rebirth and the power drawn from that process, an eternity spent birthing itself through proxies, absorbing of them what it chose and passing along any particular traits or memories it chose from any number of the infinite proxies it had absorbed throughout time. It could project dreams and illusions, and to some extent pockets of ‘reality’.

This entity Yidhra usually took the physical form of a comely young woman, but beyond this physical form it was said to be an infinite swath of darkness, an Abyss from beyond the stars of the Dreamlands. It technically was of the same Void as the Outsider, but the distance between them was infinite and eternal. According to the book, they carried in themselves some piece of the other, and it forced an unbearable attraction between them should they cross in the same sphere. Daud explained that by no means was this ‘attraction’ what one would assume. Ctoggha and this entity Yidhra were ancient enemies. What they bore inside of each other was not about a pairing or a union, it was about a violent clash of exchanged energies that both drained and charged them in equal measures when their paths crossed. They maintained the balance in the Void – one could not survive without the other, and yet they had spent all eternity wanting nothing more than to eradicate the other.

The ritual in the book exploited this forced pairing of these two old ones by inviting Yidhra into a host, whereupon absorbing the innocence and blood of a young woman during the various steps of the ritual, would send a call out to the Void and the Outsider would be compelled to answer. In short, it was a way to summon the Outsider. It did not mention the conditions under which the Outsider would appear or what would happen when he did, and Daud explained that it was not likely that the ritual had ever been performed to satisfaction or completion. Surely if it had, there would have been more than just this one book about it in all of known history.

When he lent the book to Martin, it had not occurred to him that Martin would actually succeed. Given what they knew of Rose now, it looked like he had. There was no way to know for sure, but Rose was clearly not human, not entirely – nor was she purely the entity either. There may be some traits in her that were carried over from Rose Everleigh but this Rose appeared to be every bit as powerful as the Outsider. What didn’t make sense was why Rose chose to associate so closely with this world. As powerful as she was, there was something deeply unstable about her – something that had more than once reminded him of Delilah.

She presented herself with some of the same outward appearances of Delilah’s coven members, and when Lib had told them about the tentacles with thorns it sounded very much like some bastardization of the Dunwall coven’s bloodbriar abilities. Delilah had not only been in the Void, but had _escaped_ it. This had to have left some instabilities and vulnerabilities within the Void. What if this Yidhra, this Shrouder had absorbed what had been left of Delilah? It was nearly assured that it had, given the similarities to the Witches that Rose had shown. He thought of every person he knew that had been pulled into the Void either by shrine or by a simple bending of reality to open the door. Did it absorb some of them as well? Some of himself, even? It was not lost on Daud that the powers they had seen of H.H.’s were deeply flawed, and Daud suspected that Rose’s probably were as well. They could not be purely Void – there simply weren’t flaws or instabilities to be had from what he had known of his own abilities, and those of others he had known who were marked.

Whatever the case may be, they needed to approach Rose not just as a mark but as a very real threat. Daud told them what happened outside of the ‘Rat hole, leaving nothing out. Rose had appeared from nowhere, and had incorporated H.H. back into reality. Yes, again – only this time, Daud noticed that his hand no longer held a mark when he had rebirthed. He wasn’t sure what this implied, but he was betting that it meant that there had been some connection broken between them as a result of this oversight. It might be possible to put him down once and for all.

With the marked hand, they may be able to fashion some way of fighting Rose with its own energies. He told them about how Lib Fury had walked up behind Rose and hammered her skull in clear down to her nose, and Rose had simply gotten back up and her head somehow … _popped_ back into shape. Daud could think of no better description. The bits of splintered bone and brain matter had simply evaporated from her skin, and from his own and she disappeared. It was clear that it was not possible to kill her by any ordinary means. He was not sure how they would go about it yet, but they would need to fight Void with Void. Perhaps this hand might also be a way to wake the latent abilities that Daud was certain were still inside Billie and Thomas. He just hoped it would be a clean transfer and not tainted with the evidently corrupted and unpredictable energies of Rose and H.H.

Billie and Thomas sat back, taking in all that Daud had explained. They asked many questions, getting clarification and further information. Thomas busily took notes to begin laying out a proper orderly briefing. Billie flipped through the book, looking on in awe at the diagrams and strange ancient wording as Daud explained a bit of backstory about the book. He took care to not disparage Sokolov in the process of telling the story of how he had ‘acquired’ the book. Billie and Sokolov had become close in the past few years, and while Daud found it hard to believe that Anton Sokolov was capable of a genuinely caring relationship he understood it to some degree. He wondered if Sokolov knew she was Lurk. He probably did, and was just as likely to never mention to her that he knew.

Thomas finished writing and something occurred to him that he hadn’t thought to ask. “Daud, these items – where did you get them? They are dated 1830 – when we were still in the old hideout. I would have remembered a reconnaissance run at the High Overseer’s office. Respectfully, sir, if you’ve had these this long, I would think that you would have put these pieces together well before now given what is in them.”

Daud looked at Thomas for a moment, remembering that Thomas had always been shrewd – asking questions just askant enough to both push and pull to get answers. He was destined to be a solicitor even then. Daud knew what the question behind the question was. “Thomas, Billie, its time I told you some things about Overseer Martin. There’s more than either of you knew – even beyond what you just read, and it might make a little more sense after I tell you these things.”

*******Daud’s Story: Teague Martin*******

I wasn’t always from Dunwall, as you know. I came to Dunwall from Serkonos in 1811. I was sixteen. What you don’t know is that it wasn’t my first time living in Dunwall. When I was younger, just a small child, I was kidnapped from Serkonos and brought here by someone who called himself the Actor. I’ve been dreaming about it some as of late. I had forgotten it completely until recently. I don’t know what his name was, nor do I ever want to know. He trained me to become a thief, and he did … other things, things that I can’t recall or remember. He hid things in my mind, hid them from even myself. I only recall days and evenings spent in the estate district, Drapers Ward, the financial district picking pockets, stealing small things and returning the take to the Actor. I don’t think this was his purpose for me, but thinking back on it I’m sure that is how he funded it, whatever that purpose was. My mind refuses to turn to what it was he was doing, what he was planting in my mind. I only know that one day I found myself free from him, and I made my way back to Serkonos but something in me had changed. I wasn’t able to return to my life there, not really. I try to recall if I saw my mother again, but I can’t remember even that. I don’t know if she looked for me after I was gone, either.

Those years before I came to Dunwall were like a dream, a poorly remembered one. I do remember coming to Dunwall when I was older. One of the first people I met was a boy around my own age – a boy who would come to be known as Teague Martin. No, that wasn’t his real name. He never told me what his real name was, and the few things he let slip about his past were vague. He was from Morley, and ended up in Old Lamprow after the Insurrection fell. I think his family were farmers, or something like that. He belonged to the High Rippers there in Old Lamprow – yes, those same ones. They were just a group of bored and violent young guys back then, nothing like the enterprise they are now. Martin came to Dunwall to seek a greater purpose through a new life as a different man. No, he wasn’t particularly inclined toward the ‘devout’. He was strong in his convictions – very strong, even if they were not aligned with the strictures.

When I met Martin, he talked to me about an experience he had in Old Lamprow. He was evasive about the particulars, but he had met someone who told him about a dream in which a boy with black eyes told her to seek out Martin and this black-eyed boy gave her Martin’s true name. Yes, it was the Outsider and when Martin told me about this I told him about the Outsider. It was then that we started walking together on a common path - to seek out the Outsider. Martin was smart, and over the next few years he and I worked roughly aside each other between our individual jobs. We would travel to locations that he had pinpointed as the most likely places to find Outsider shrines. He was a hell of a strategist, and he was never wrong. Every location he picked ended up having some connection to the Outsider, whether it was a shrine, or a coven, or even if it were just a hidden stash of bonecharms or runes.

During those years between voyages, he picked up some military training – naval, so that he could better plan and chart our excursions by sea. Martin was considering joining the Abbey by that time and I had my mind set on attending the Academy. We both shared a common goal, and we each felt that the paths we were choosing would lead us there. Not long after, Martin joined up with the Abbey, and I entered the Academy and our excursions together came to an end though our individual searches for the Outsider did not. I know, it does seem odd that Martin would choose the path of an Overseer to further seek out the Outsider, but like I said there was something inherent inside of him that made him a perfect fit as an Overseer even if he weren’t using the Abbey to track down the Outsider. He thought that being an Overseer, given his colorful past would intrigue the Outsider but it clearly didn’t. Around this time, I got my mark. Why, yes Lurk – it _did_ have something to do with how I got thrown out of the Academy. I suppose Sokolov told you about that? Ah, well I’m not surprised that he failed to mention certain particulars. One day I’ll tell you how it happened, and why it got the Outsider’s attention but let’s get back to Martin.

Martin had gotten obsessive after I got my mark, and I was finding it difficult to keep humoring him. I had this book, and I lent it to him to get him off my back. It didn’t occur to me that he would actually carry through with it. Do you remember that, Billie? I had you deliver a package to him just before we did that chloroform job. Yes, that was Martin – and I imagine he did look different. He wouldn’t have wanted to be recognized receiving something that would have him immediately executed if he were caught with it. I’m not surprised you don’t remember it that well. You weren’t happy to be sent out like an errand-girl to deliver a package after all the training I had put you through. Yes, I suppose so – it was that one right there near the Hounds Pit. He owned that building. Yes, that was Martin and the package you delivered was this very book.

I got caught up in planning the chloroform job, and didn’t give Martin much thought. When he showed up the day after that job, I thought he was coming around like he used to in order to see what he could pick up from me about getting closer to the Outsider. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with Martin at that time, and I wasn’t paying as close attention to him as I should have. He walked into our hideout with this box, and when I left the room to get something to scrub my jacket down with I came back and didn’t notice that he no longer had the box. I had left my trunk open, and Martin seized the opportunity to bury it in the bottom of the trunk. He planted it, and I have no doubt that he planned to set me up with it later. I’m not entirely convinced that Overseer Hume was taking advisement only from Delilah. I can imagine Martin insinuating that if Hume stepped in early perhaps he would find something very interesting. As you recall, we didn’t give Hume the chance. Had he by some chance gotten into my trunk and found it, it wouldn’t have been a handful of Overseers coming for us – it would have been an army. It would have appeared that we attempted to take out Campbell with a summoned demon. The logic of it wouldn’t have mattered. We would have been found in possession of Abbey property – the reports ‘stolen’ to try to hide our involvement. The bonecharm is just a prop, I’m thinking. Just something to further solidify the ‘evidence.’ They would have pinned Campbell's heretic branding on us as well, regardless of how ridiculous of an accusation that would be. I suppose they would have advertised it as our own perverse brand of irony.

I don’t know if it ever became common knowledge how Campbell got that brand. It seems after he found his way to the Flooded District weeping blood and vomiting flies, he simply disappeared from history, and no one asked any further questions. At the time, I didn’t know how Campbell got the brand so no – I didn’t have a specific plan for Campbell and Corvo to cross paths at Greaves when I threw his gear down there, though in hindsight it _was_ poetic.

After the chloroform job, it was a while before I saw Martin again. He came to me in 1837 not long after the assassination. We set up a meeting at his apartment one night. I could tell it had been a while since he had been there. He wasn’t looking too good when I saw him. He was pale and jumpy, but had a solid plan in mind for how he intended for this to work out. He told me about the ‘Loyalists’ and what they were up to, and that Pendleton and Havelock were starting to show signs of instability. He wanted to take a contract out on them. His offer was 30,000 coin. No, Thomas – that was no coincidence. Martin had evidently found out that the Burrows was planning on storming the Flooded District. Guess Burrows didn’t take too kindly to having to double his payout for the assassination. Martin wanted to get what he could out of me before that could happen. His plan was simple – the Loyalists had already plotted to poison Corvo and Martin would arrange for his body to end up in the Flooded District. As Corvo’s ‘corpse’ was making its way to us, I was to take out Pendleton and Havelock, leaving Martin to continue with his plan: to install the Abbey as part of the ruling body of the Empire. As High Overseer in his vision, he would have been second in command only to the Empress. He would practically raise Emily Kaldwin to adulthood with firm Abbey principles and leanings. I’m not sure if he was still personally interested in the Outsider at that point, he didn’t mention it though he did reveal that Corvo was marked. I can’t say I was surprised, particularly not when Corvo turned up in the Flooded District alive.

There was a stipulation to the contract – I was to take out Pendleton and Havelock by myself – that’s why neither of you knew about this. No one did. The 30,000 coin reward for Corvo’s body and gear was intended to be my payment for the contracts. We never would have seen it otherwise, Martin assured me. When Corvo turned up alive, I knew then that Martin intended for Corvo to kill me, or for me to kill Corvo. He knew that he could not kill either of us, so he set us up to fight each other. Whomever was left standing would be taken out next. Given that Martin had planted this ‘evidence’ in my trunk, it appears that he intended for me to kill Corvo, and then he would have the Whalers, all of us - taken out by the Overseers. No one would have ever found out what he had done.

I am nearly certain that Rose is here because of Martin opening a door to the Void, but I was the one who gave him the key. I don’t judge him for the steps he took, even now. I’ve done worse. All I can do now is whatever I can to send Rose back to the Void, and shut the door behind her.

**********

Billie and Thomas sat quietly for a moment, and Thomas poured them each a double-dram of Orbon, and one for Daud. Billie admitted that she was surprised by the depth of Daud’s involvement with Martin, though given Daud’s odd evasive behavior those last days in Dunwall it made sense. They speculated about what had happened to Martin’s body after Kingsparrow, and settled on the likelihood that he had ended up stripped naked, his Overseer garb burned, and his body and thrown in a hole with a shovelful of lime in that paupers’ boneyard off Endoria. They finished up their drinks and after a few smokes, turned to the business of examining and testing H.H.’s hand. The bag had been quietly jerking and shifting as the hand twisted and turned trying to claw its way out, but the baling wire had held steady. They each took a deep breath and Daud laid out his plan and method for testing the hand. They would start by pinning it to one of Daud’s specimen trays, and go from there. As if the hand had heard them, the jerking and twisting intensified inside the bag and it emitted the first of what would be many silent screams over the course of the evening.


	70. A call to the sleeping god, and an unexpected witness

The Elder woman knelt by the large fireplace in the Lodge, preparing herself for the commune. There was a fragrant smoke coming from the bunches of dried herbs she had tossed into the glowing coals, and her mind was nearly ready for the task at hand. She had meditated over the decision to commune with the sleeping god for a couple of days now, and had not had much trouble making the decision to do so. Earlier in the day, she had sensed a change in the air – a thinness that could not be attributed to the weather. It was rare to experience, but over the past few years she had noticed an uptick in the occurrences, and particularly since the events that the girl Lily had described. Today had been a particularly strong wave, and the Elder woman did not like the feeling of it. She had walked down to the marked one’s cabin that Lily was staying in and walked a wide berth around it, but saw nor sensed anything out of the ordinary outside of the waves of dark Void energy emanating from the protective membrane surrounding it. The Elder woman was comforted that the girl was protected, even if was under the watch of the cythraul-hunleff. The other thing that was part of what was growing inside of her seemed far more dangerous, and while the Elder woman sensed it in the air she did not sense it coming from the cabin.

She walked back to the Lodge, taking in the surrounding area through the filter of her eyeless sight. Her sight allowed her to see disturbances that others were not able to sense but she saw nothing that gave her cause for alarm. Perhaps it was time to head to the old refinery buildings down by the strid and see if a commune would work this time. Many times over the years, she had tried to commune with the sleeping god and while she got visions and fractions of whispers she had not gotten much more than that. Perhaps with this recent disturbance, the sleeping god would at least stir some to speak with her, or send some sort of message that would guide her in what to do next. There was no telling what would come when this child was born – no telling whether it would be, or even appear, human. She was frightened for Lily, unsure how the girl would handle birthing and how she would handle what she would give birth to.

The Elder woman stood, her knees and back creaking and cracking as she stood. She was grateful that she did not feel pain, though her joints were certainly stiff enough. She stretched, and breathed deeply of the smoky air, allowing it to further pad her will and resolve to make the walk down to the old refinery buildings. She figured filling her flask with some Flin and bringing it along probably wouldn’t hurt either.

It wasn’t terribly far to the old refinery buildings, and it was a nice enough day but the Elder woman could think of a long list of things she’d rather do than take that walk particularly if there was a very good chance that her calls to the sleeping god would go unanswered. She called to Gwynda, letting her know that she was heading to the old refinery for a bit and to make sure someone was keeping eyes on the marked one’s cabin at all times. The Elder woman knew that she would not need anyone to tell her when the child was going to be born – she suspected that as soon as the process started the Elder woman would know right away. She was sure Daud would as well. She wasn’t worried about that right now, though. She knew that the birth was still several weeks away. The child had not quickened yet that Lily had been able to report or that the Elder woman could feel, so it may well be that the birth could be even further away than that. Only time, and Lily’s natural cycles would tell.

The old refinery buildings, while sturdy and in good shape had long since been abandoned. When the hemlock processing was consolidated in the north port the smaller refineries were absorbed nearly immediately. The large water wheels that powered the processes at the small refineries were dismantled and rebuilt or repurposed for use in the port refinery. The rush of the water along the strid had always provided a steady and reliable source of energy, and when this particular refinery went up on the block for sale, the Elder woman bought it right away. She had a smaller version of the refinery water wheel built by the master carpenters in the Wilds, and set up the main building as her workshop. It was here where the majority of the potions, reagents and salves used in the Lodge were created with a modernity that would surprise most. She knew that there were those who imagined her squatting in the dirt stirring up brews in a mudhole like a common Witch, but the Elder woman was far more adept than those outside the Baleton area gave her credit for. She had spent her life learning botany and basic animal science and had put her knowledge to use to better the world around her. Her immediate world in the ‘Wilds benefitted greatly and there was no shortage of Common folks who came for help as well.

Even the old crusty doctors that worked out of the Baleton Barber and Surgery would come in times when their regular remedies were failing to work, or needed a boost. A few even took advice and lessons from her to augment and improve their own practices. Once she had even hosted Dr. Galvanni from Dunwall, who had come up to Baleton seeking her knowledge and advice on a number of topics, including the use of nettlespore acid as a possible reactant in a formula he was working on. She had spent much time with Anne Bonny, who was more than happy to trade the traditional medical knowledge and treatment tips she had learned at the Academy for botanical and organic ones.

The Elder woman was glad for the people who had crossed her threshold over the years. There had been a few moments where tensions had risen, particularly when the Brothers of the Abbey would pay a visit. They would come around a couple of times a year, mostly for archeological purposes but for some reason there were always a handful who made their way to the Lodge to talk to her, intrigued by her sight in the absence of eyes. They were polite in the way that Abbeymen generally were to those who were not known to be heretics, but in the end there was always a clear delineation between the people of the ‘Wilds and those who lived by the Strictures. She enjoyed the lively debate, but was always glad to see them go. They did not come for, nor did they find heresy – but they always found a way to hammer in those Strictures. The Strictures were common sense to her, but if the Brothers wanted to be fanatical about it then so be it.

The Sisters of the Order would come occasionally as well, and the Elder woman was always glad to see them. She had not met one yet who did not intrigue and greatly interest her. The interest was mutual, as the Sisters and the Elder woman shared a common trait in their ability to see beyond this world. They would spend long hours throughout the night talking about their visions and comparing notes. More than once it became apparent that they were each channeling from the same flow of undercurrents that ran just beneath the sight of regular folks. It wasn’t unusual to dip one’s toes into many streams, so to speak.

The Elder woman reached the old refinery, and walked the old plank walkway that bordered the strid and made her way to the main building. She let herself in, and began to prepare for the commune. There were many rituals that one could do to bring about a commune with the sleeping god. Some involved the clippings or fluids of various animals and people, others involved chants and incantations, and depending on who you ask – the ‘right’ way to do it is generally the version they are telling you. The Elder woman knew that none of the rituals were ‘right’, but neither were any of them ‘wrong’. A human brain was simply not equipped to understand communications with interdimensionals, so the rituals were largely metaphorical – the only way a given person could interpret what was experienced. Some envisioned it a sexual interaction – this was the most common. Sex, death and fear all share a room in the brain after all. Sometimes it was envisioned as a visit to another world, or a literal rip in the fabric of reality from which an interdimensional would peek out. The Elder woman simply went with her gut and used whatever devices or words seemed to be appropriate at the time. The human instinct was the closest thing to interdimensional understanding, and when her gut guided her to one method or another she was assured that it would be the correct one for the given situation. Or at least that is how it had been. Over the past years, she would imagine her gut leading her on one path or other toward the commune, but she knew deep down that they were all dead ends and the silence at the end confirmed it. She hadn’t felt much from her gut until recently. Very recently. She felt strongly that this time the path would be clear, and gathered the various props that her hands gravitated toward.

The Elder woman knelt in the large circle, and began to clear her mind slowly purging all thought until there was nothing in her vision but absence. She rocked back and forth, the rhythm setting the pace for the wavelengths of energy that she would send out and down under the strid. As she rocked, wisps of energy rose around her like heat shimmers from the objects embedded in the eight corners in the circle, and the lines connecting, interconnecting and bisecting them began to pulse and fill with a greenish glow. The air grew thick and heavy with the smells of stagnant water and undersea rot and the Elder woman opened her sight from within just as the circle suddenly powered down, leaving the lines and objects as dead as the ordinary objects they were. Fuck. Fuck!

The Elder woman rose to her feet, her knees and back cracking and popping through their stiffness, and walked outside to think. She stood on the sidewalk planking that bordered the strid and looked down into the rushing and churning water, pulling her pack of Sanjica cigarettes out of her apron pocket. She lit one of the fragrant cigarettes, drawing in the calming smoke and relaxing as it spread throughout her blood. She had been sure that it would work this time, but instead of the usual silence of failure – the ritual had gone so far as to shut _itself_ off. It was a slam of a door to the face, something akin to ordinary rudeness. She looked up, appreciating at least the relatively clearness of the sky. There was little wind, and the sun was out some. She looked back down to the water, her mind niggling at something. There was something off, something not quite right. She looked up and then back down again and realized that she could not see her shadow – and while Sanjica was known to alter states it did not erase the laws of nature. She realized then that she was no longer in her body, not quite. She was both physical and not-physical in this moment, a strange sensation she had not experienced before. She was a shade, but yet here she was smoking (and enjoying) the Sanjica. She turned and walked back into the refinery building and watched herself rocking and chanting within the fully powered circle. She smiled, and walked back outside. She understood the metaphor, accepted the invitation and jumped into the strid.

**************

Rose stepped from its shadow form in the corner of the refinery building and approached the circle. The sphere hovering over the floor was impenetrable, and the Elder woman so well guarded inside of it that Rose could not even so much as approach. 

Rose had been compelled here, some part of Rose inadvertently called from one of the corners of the circle – called just when it had been poised to crush both Daud and the big woman Lib into powder. It did not care about its physical form being damaged – that was easy enough to fix, and Rose did not feel pain in any case. What it did care about was finishing its experiment unhindered. At the ‘Rat hole, Rose had been distracted by the process of rebirthing H.H. and it had been caught off guard by Daud. Some part of Rose Everleigh, something deep down revealed itself within Rose. It had not expected the reaction that the part of it that was Rose Everleigh had toward Daud. When Rose Everleigh exposed this part of herself within Rose she had exposed a few other useful bits of information in the process. It understood a little more about Daud, and about this man Martin – Lily’s father. The wisps of what was left of Rose Everleigh had evidently merged these two men into a single memory. Rose did not like to consider the implications of proximity between itself and Daud as a result. It would have to keep its distance from here on out.

Rose watched as the sphere began to spin slowly, and then more quickly. The inertia of the sphere sent waves of energy throughout the objects embedded within each of the eight corners of the circle, and the segments between them began to glow. Rose narrowed its eyes as the true form of the Elder woman uncurled from its body inside the sphere and made its way outside. It had not expected this, not at all. It cursed the shreds of Delilah that it had incorporated into itself – evidently with the useful bits of Delilah it had also absorbed a great deal of Delilah’s tendency to underestimate her opponents. Rose recloaked itself in its shadow form and drifted outside and watched the true form of the Elder woman smoking, and felt a twinge from within itself at the smell of the smoke – familiar somehow. The sight of this being doing something as ordinary as smoking a cigarette would send an average human into immediate shrieking lunacy, but Rose found the sight of it mildly amusing. It watched for a moment, and when the being sank beneath the surface of the strid Rose turned and walked back into the refinery to wait it out. Through this arcane method of being compelled, Rose knew that it could not leave until the ritual was over. It sank itself into a dormant state in a corner under a table, and waited.


	71. The Whalers, high above Baleton

“Again.”

Up on the roof of Bldg. 4, Daud was putting his Whalers through their paces with an ease and comfort that belied the nearly twenty years since he had last done so. By putting them through familiar paces, Daud had been able to uncover which abilities each had regained, and to their surprise a few that had been gained. Billie and Thomas were now each able to transverse and perform their pulls with little difficulty. The experiments on H.H.’s hand had unlocked the potential for Billie and Thomas to use the Void abilities that Daud had been sure was still inside them even after all of these years. He was relieved that there seemed to be none of the instability and corruption in their abilities that had been present in H.H.’s abilities.

In addition to transverse and pull, Thomas was now able to summon a modest swarm of rats – just regular feral rats – still dangerous in numbers, but not H.H.’s living rotting abominations that had been set upon Daud up at the castle ruins. Billie could also transverse and pull, but did not seem to possess any new abilities. Daud was certain that she would be able to tap into the lightning burst, and it had been his plan to help her tame and control it and study it further in the process. Cholly and Joplin were up on the roof with them, having earlier joined Billie, Daud and Thomas at Daud’s lab down in the basement of his shop. While Thomas was explaining some of the Void abilities to Cholly and Joplin, Daud focused his efforts on Billie.

“Again.”

Daud pushed her a little harder with each pace he ran on her, and he was beginning to see some of the familiar impatience and anger that Lurk had possessed when she had first come to him all those years ago. She had always performed better under pressure, and once Daud helped her overcome her insecurities and tame her hot temper she had quickly become a force to be reckoned with, even at a young age. From Billie’s performance through the paces, on the surface it appeared that missing an arm and an eye had affected her ability to move intuitively, though Daud knew that the only real problem lay in Billie’s head and not with her missing eye and arm. She had spent a hard number of years crawling up from nothing after leaving Dunwall, and with each new level she rose in her life, she had evidently left bits of her pride and confidence behind. Anger, she kept. He was pleased at the generous supply of it within her. As he always had done, Daud would use her anger to his advantage – and to her own. He had spent years drawing it out of her in careful measures, and tempering and sharpening it for her to tame and use to further her training. Daud knew that she was in no way diminished – he just had to convince her of that, even if it meant pissing her off. Anger always did have a way of motivating Lurk. Billie stumbled in her transversal, and landed straight on her ass and Daud sharply told her to get her ass up and do it again – this time without falling over her own feet.

Billie jumped up, her eye flashing with rage and she yelled “Fuck you!” Daud suddenly had a gut feeling about something, and casually reached down, grabbed a piece of stray rock that had been up on the roof and threw it straight at her as hard as he could. Billie reached up with a gesture, and the rock veered away before it got within a foot of her. Her surprise was palpable, and Daud was pleased that his gut had been correct. Even though some of the things that Daud could sense in Billie were still vague from the long disuse of their bond, he could still see wisps of abilities that he had not seen before – this deflect had been barely more than a guess, but he had been correct. They practiced the deflect ability a few times more, and Daud told her she could take a break. He needed one himself. It wasn’t tiring what they were doing, not in a physical sense but Daud could feel a touch of fatigue catching up with him after these days of discovery and very little sleep.

Billie joined Thomas, Cholly and Joplin and they began to talk about a number of things that Daud wasn’t particularly interested in, and eventually tuned out as he sat on the ledge of his roof, smoking and thinking back to the experiments earlier in the evening.

***** Earlier in the evening, down in the lab *****

After Billie, Thomas and Daud discussed Martin and Rose, and exhausted what they could of the reports and Rose’s diary they turned to the matter of H.H.’s hand squirming and jerking inside the bag. As they were carefully taking the hand out of the bag, Billie brought up an interesting point. Given the nature of what happened with Lily and Daud resulting in a child, was it possible that a similar interaction had happened with Rose and Martin, which in turn had produced Lily? It would make sense, given the cyclical nature of birth and rebirth of the other Void entity mentioned in the book. Daud had brought up that the times didn’t add up – Lily was only 22. She would be 25 or 26 if Martin had gotten Rose pregnant during those events. Thomas reminded Daud that pregnancy did not seem to follow general timelines where the Void was concerned. After all, Lily was evidently heavily pregnant having not been visibly so a couple of days previously. Daud was inclined to agree, that in that case – yes, Lily could very well be the result of what had happened between Martin and Rose. It added yet another level of discomfort for Daud – not because of Martin, but at the thought that Lily may hold some unknown piece of the Void inside of her. He had sensed something potentially dangerous from the moment he first met her, but it would never have occurred to him to see it as the threat that it had become. It was not a mystery that Daud wanted to consider this evening, so they turned their attentions to the hand.

Once they got the hand out of the bag, Daud held it splayed down on his anatomy dissection board while Thomas held U-shaped fencing staples steady as Billie tapped them gently down over the joints of the fingers with Daud’s small tackhammer. Once H.H.’s hand was pinned firmly down, they discussed a plan of action for experimentation. As they were discussing the plans, they were interrupted by knocking coming from upstairs. Someone was banging on Daud’s shop door. They went quiet, but Daud told them that it was more than likely a client appointment he had forgotten about and went upstairs to check.

When Daud opened the shop door, Cholly and Joplin stood there and asked to come in. Joplin was carrying a long shallow wooden box that looked very much like a miniature casket, and Cholly had a fairly excited look on his face when he asked if Meagan was here with him. They had just returned from the ‘Flask and hadn’t seen her or Thomas there so figured they were here with Daud. Joplin looked a little pale, but otherwise recovered from the ordeal at the ‘Rat hole. Daud led them down to the basement, and Daud found himself oddly excited to show his lab to Joplin. He wondered what the boy would make of it. He also wondered what Joplin would be able to contribute to their experimentation.

As it turned out, Joplin had been able to contribute quite a bit of useful insight into the various experiments on the hand. Daud had first explained to Joplin and Cholly a little about his lab, what he did in there. He did not mention the area in the corner under the stairs where the Void was leaking through. Daud was hesitant at first to expose either of them to that raw unfiltered Void energy, but ultimately decided that there was little risk to either of them since the average person not touched by the Void would not be likely to even sense it – perhaps there was a hint of a risk to Joplin considering his bloodline, but Piero Joplin had never gotten farther than dreams with the Outsider. At least not that Daud knew of. At most, Daud expected not more than a rush of discomfort from their exposure, if anything at all.

Both boys were impressed with Daud’s lab and the various things that Daud showed them in there. Cholly had some ideas about various uses for the substances that could augment weaponry – a few that Daud hadn’t considered. Cholly was a born strategist, much like Teague Martin had been – only Cholly showed none of the accediac qualities of Martin that had ultimately led him to his death. Daud knew that he had made the right choice in joining up with Cholly. He was young, but sharp – hard, but honest and fair.

Joplin had studied the various concoctions a bit more closely, impressing Daud with the number of times he was correct in deducing what ingredients had gone into each one. When Daud asked him how he knew, Joplin looked puzzled - scrunched his brow, pushed his glasses further up his nose and said “I smelled them, sir” as if Daud were going soft in the head. A keen sense of smell was a good thing for anyone to have, but Daud knew that Joplin had no idea just how gifted he really was. Daud himself relied on his heightened sense of smell when mixing and measuring percentages of the ingredients the concoctions. He had not met anyone besides this boy who could match him at it.

Daud turned both boys to the corner, and asked each one to observe the corner under the stairs and let him know if they noticed anything unusual about it. Cholly said he thought the wood looked to have gone a little warped there, but Joplin was eyeing it a little more intently – saying nothing. Daud then asked them each to wave their hand close to the corner conjunction. Cholly went first. He waved his hand, and said it felt a little like a weak current in a live wire. Perhaps there was some sort of electrical leak? He didn’t report any particular sensation outside of the tangible, however. Cholly stood back and Joplin stepped into the corner and hesitantly waved his thin hand through the area.

Joplin jumped back, glaring at Daud and asked him what the fuck he thought he was doing tricking them into touching something like that. Cholly looked stunned, unsure what Joplin was getting at and especially surprised to hear him talking to the _Assassin Daud_ in such a way. The man was Death himself! What the hell? Joplin stood as tall as he was able and jutted his jaw defiantly, anger burning in his eyes behind the thick lenses of his glasses. He was clearly not afraid of Daud in this moment, and he made it known that he expected an answer. Daud was taken aback, not used to this particular brand of defiance. Except from Lurk, of course. That had been a regular occurrence for her some years back.

Daud stepped forward, glaring into the boy’s eyes and asked Joplin what exactly he thought it was he had touched. When Daud drew close, he felt the slightest bit of give from the boy – but Joplin bravely held his composure. “Mr. Daud, you knew my father if I’m not mistaken, and you surely know of his involvement with the Outsider. Now, with all due respect, I don’t give a shit what you or your Whalers do with your abilities, or what you do or say with the Outsider – it is no concern of mine. I personally choose not to be involved with it. I want no part of it. Whatever it was in my father destroyed my mother. Do you hear me, Mr. Daud? My mother is out there in the ‘Wilds doing very little besides drooling like an imbecile and staring off into space because of whatever he did to her. I can only assume that the Outsider had something to do with it, given my father’s obvious obsession with him. I lost my mother because of this … this… _shit_ ” he said, gesturing angrily toward the corner. “I am not my father, Mr. Daud. I’m not sure what you are getting at having me wave my hand around in the Void like that, but I will not accept it – do you understand me, sir?”

In those few sentences, Daud knew what he needed to know about Joplin. He was surprised the Outsider hadn’t already tried to mark him. His reaction was exactly what he expected it would be. The boy had the innate power of the Void floating dormant and unused in his veins, such power at his fingertips should he wish and he flatly rejected it. What Joplin’s father would have given for a fraction of that! Joplin’s nascent abilities were no doubt rivaling those of even of Billie and Thomas, but Daud kept all of this to himself. He wholly respected the boy’s decision, and suspected that even if he were to tell him this – Joplin more than likely already knew, and worse – hated himself for it.

Daud simply narrowed his eyes, and turned away from the boys. He looked back at Joplin ever so slightly over his shoulder and said “I understand more than you can know” and left it at that. It was time to get started on the hand.

The first round of experiments had been straightforward. Comparing the mark to the various sigils and diagrams in the book had revealed that the mark was primarily an amalgam of those of the two forms of the Void entities – the Outsider, and his counterpart. The dissimilar parts were assumed to be a reflection of perhaps the sleeping god, and the thing that was Rose – a distant entity that had evidently wandered into the Void and assimilated what it had found there, including the swath of rabid corruption left behind by Delilah. Whatever Rose had been, whatever entity it had started out as had been twisted and wrought into this hybrid that carried the detritus of a millennia’s or more worth of memories and experiences found in the Void – the freshest of course being those of Delilah. The entity was not nearly as dangerous as those motivations which formed and drove it. Once the mark had been satisfactorily identified, they had run the hand through a number of sensory and pain tests.

They experimented first with reactions that would come with exposure to second-degree Void energy through a marked one. When Daud brought his hand to H.H.’s – the hand twitched and wriggled under its tight pinnings as if to grab at him. The hand was clearly attuned to Daud’s energy, and was programmed to attack within proximity. With third-degree Void energy, the hand was a bit slower to react. When Billie and Thomas brought their hands to it, they were able to actually touch it before it reacted. At their touch, the hand jumped as if electrified and then shivered and trembled with the effort to unpin itself to get at them.

The next experiment would be exposure to first-degree Void energy. When the hand was brought close to the eddy in the corner of Daud’s lab, it _cringed_ from it like a wounded animal and Daud, Billie and Thomas were all able to hear its psychic whimpering and eventual disembodied screams as they ran it through a battery of various first-degree Void exposure tests. Though Joplin was silent, Daud could see from the strained look on his face that he heard the screaming too.

They noted their findings, and together concluded that due to a distinct painful repulsion between the two energies, there was the probability that the hand could be compelled to extrude its energies should the repulsion be heightened. It was Daud’s hope that the extruded energies could be absorbed and combined with their own, with a very low chance of transferring the corruption. It was Joplin who suggested that instead of merely increasing the repulsion, it would be far more likely to work if the energy in the hand could be pulled out with an intensity equal to or greater than the force of the repulsion. Daud had used his pull in a number of different ways, but with the exception of cancelling out the mindless pulls sent from Bloodbriars it didn’t have much, if any effect on other Void entities. He wasn’t sure if his pull would work in such a way that Joplin had suggested on the hand, but was more than willing to try.

When the time came for the extrusion test, Cholly held the pinned-down hand in the Void eddy while Daud, Billie and Thomas each brought their hand to H.H.’s, Daud focused his energy toward his Pull ability to augment the repulsion from the eddy. They could each feel the familiar sensation as the hand was forced to expel its energy stores into them – for Daud it felt like drinking the spiritual solution perhaps a little too quickly. For Billie and Thomas if felt like the arcane bond tearing through their veins like fine Orbon fire. Daud was surprised at the amount of energy he was able to pull through the hand. He did not mention it, but speculated that perhaps the hand was not _all_ that the power was being pulled from. He wondered if somewhere off wherever H.H. had gone to, he was feeling perhaps a bit _drained_. It was Daud’s hope that it was case, but he didn’t want to sow any seeds of false hope. One thing at a time.

After no more than ten or fifteen minutes, the hand began to first shiver and then convulse under the pinnings over its knuckles as it spent the last of its energies. As the Whalers absorbed the last of the energy from it, the hand seized and the mark on the hand faded and then melted from the skin in thin greenish wisps. They each took deep breaths, stretching out their hands and arms – getting accustomed to the faintly foreign energies that pulsed through them and mixed freely with their own.

Cholly held the anatomy board in the Void eddy for a moment longer, and then prodded it lightly to check for movement. Seeing none, he took the anatomy board to the small round table near the lab door and under Joplin’s watchful eye, began prying off the U-shaped fencing staples one by one. When the last U-shaped fencing nail was pulled and set aside, Joplin carefully reached for H.H.’s hand and when he touched it the hand seized violently, first forming a tight fist and then splaying flatly open several times before curling into itself, crumpling like a dying spider. Joplin wiped his hand off on his breeches, hissing with distaste at the sensation he had felt when he touched the hand. Joplin watched the hand, fascinated as it began to rapidly desiccate – the skin of the fingers and back of the hand shrinking around the ropy tendons and small collapsing ribbons of muscle. There was no blood, nor did the hand have any particular smell decomp or otherwise. It simply shriveled and dried into a neatly mummified claw, the nails appearing to grow as the skin shrank back further until the elasticity was entirely gone.

Joplin looked over at the Whalers. In just over a quarter of an hour exposure to these combined Void energies, each of them had age-regressed even more. Joplin knew that these Whalers now looked not much different than they did when his father presumably knew them. Joplin had it in his mind that all of the Void-marked somehow knew each other and cavorted together in some fashion. He didn’t care if that was truly the case or not, but it eased his mind in a strange way to lump them all safely into the same category in his mind. He did not dislike the Whalers, but he was determined that when it came to these matters he would gladly do no more than observe. After the Whalers stretched and shook off their evidently unusual sensations, Joplin gingerly held up the dry and shrunken hand and asked if he may have it for further observation and perhaps testing. Daud considered it for a moment, and kept his answer vague: ask me again in the next few days. Daud didn’t want to take the chance that the extrusion process might somehow reverse. He felt strangely protective of Joplin, and not for the first time considered letting the boy have run of the lab on days when Daud was working the shop upstairs. It was something he was going to consider seriously, but for now it was time to put Thomas and Billie through some familiar paces and his roof was the perfect place to get started.

**********

Daud stubbed out his cigarette and stood, stretching out his back and rolling his shoulders. He hadn’t felt this good in a long time. He felt more alive, his senses far sharper than they had been. He hoped Billie and Thomas felt this good as well. Being able to have full use of their powers (and then some) certainly seemed to sharpen them considerably but Daud could tell they were understandably tired. There would be time to rest soon, but Daud had one more test for Billie. He was determined to draw out that lightning again, but as he had been smoking and letting his thoughts wander freely through recent events he was reminded of something that Lib had told them at the ‘Rat hole. Daud was fairly certain that he knew the implications of it but should he be correct – this would be far more complicated than Daud wanted things to be right now. If this were going to happen, Daud would prefer it be under controlled circumstances should he succeed in drawing it out. Then perhaps turn to the lightning. First, this needed to be addressed and tested.

Daud walked over to where Billie and Thomas were standing and talking with Cholly and Joplin. Billie had her jacket off and Joplin was doing something to her that Daud couldn’t see from where he was standing. He watched not Joplin, but Billie and Thomas’s faces. Billie looked equal parts fascinated and horrified at whatever Joplin was doing and Thomas looked deeply interested in whatever Joplin was pointing out to him just out of Daud’s sight.

Daud walked up, and was not expecting what he saw when Billie turned to face him. When she turned, attached to her stump was an elaborate clockwork _arm_ , complete with delicately- jointed wrists and fingers. Daud was wonder-struck as he examined the intricate workings of the arm and hand. There were tiny cogs and wheels and neatly compact bearing casings tucked efficiently into the various conjunctions between the thin but clearly strong rods making up the frame of the structure. It was a patchwork of steel and brass, repurposed bits and pieces that had been polished to a high shine, ground to smooth edges and oiled with a delicate but precise touch. Billie walked to Daud, and brought the clockwork hand up between them and a strange smile crept across her face as the fingers and wrist of the contraption began to move. The others gathered around as Billie held the clockwork hand up to Daud, and Daud met it with his own palm and laced his fingers through those of the clockwork hand. He did not feel hard metal or fluid mechanical movement. He felt warmth, flesh. He felt _Billie_. He could feel the Void surging within her, as if he were touching her bare skin and not a collection of expertly-cobbled bits of metal.

Joplin cleared his throat to break the awed silence in the group, and began to explain his theory that Billie had absorbed not only the energies that extruded from the hand, but the very muscle memory of it. It would explain the rapid shrinking and mummification of H.H.’s hand when the energy from it had been spent. After she absorbed what was available from it, it was as if she had formed a sort of phantom arm and hand, and the clockwork prosthesis had simply been incorporated as the physical manifestation of it in absence of actual flesh.

Joplin shuddered at the idea, but was deeply fascinated by it. He had not considered that the energies from the Void could be harnessed and purposed in such a useful way. The implications were stunning. What if he were to make her an eye? Would that work in the same way? Would she be able to see? Would her sight include shades of the Void mixed with images of reality? He did not want to think of what they would have to do to get an eye, though. Joplin was no fan of H.H. but he couldn’t imagine gouging out one of his eyes for this purpose, or for any purpose for that matter.

They all watched as Billie performed mundane tasks with the clockwork hand – she could do everything with it that she could with her own before she lost it. Her grip was firm, her reflexes sound and she could _feel_ through it, which helped with fine-tuned movement. It was beautifully grotesque, this effortless liquid movement of metal. Billie admitted that when Joplin first opened the box, she was horrified by the prosthesis even as she admired its beauty and craftsmanship. It bore more than a passing resemblance to some of Jindosh’s more delicate clockwork creatures – not the brute heaviness of the hulking clankers but the equally deadly finery of the smaller clockwork creatures he had been working on before he inexplicably turned his back on his life’s work in 1852. Had he continued with his work, there was little doubt that he could have built a creature entirely out of delicate clockwork that would have been distinguishable from a man or woman only by the lack of a skin covering the inner works. Once she got the prosthesis on, it had felt like a sleeping limb coming awake – at first deeply, almost painfully tingling all the way down to the tips of the metal fingers and then within minutes it felt no different than her other arm. Only Daud seemed to be able to feel the physical sensation of flesh and bone, but there was no doubt from any of them that the intuitive fluid movement of the intricate metal workings was entirely Billie’s.

Daud, Billie and Thomas practiced for a while with their blades – Daud had his old blade, and he had a few spares for Thomas and Billie – not their old Whaler blades, but fine enough ones for practice. Neither Daud nor Thomas was able to shake Billie’s deft moves with her clockwork hand. She held her grip firmly, and her movements were as intuitive as ever. After this, Daud decided it was time to test his earlier theory.

Thomas, Cholly and Joplin all wandered over to the chairs over in the corner of the roof by the service door, talking excitedly about the events of the evening, and as Daud drew in his focus, their chatter lowered to a murmur in his thoughts. He drew Billie near, and began to talk to her about summoning. Daud hadn’t performed a summon since his last days in Dunwall, and wasn’t about to now. He had no idea who, or what would appear should he summon. He assumed it would be an assassin – but had no desire to find out, particularly not after that disturbing dream where he had summoned an assassin. He forced his mind to turn away from the summon in his dream, to turn sharply away from the vision of Lily under the Whaler mask, dead for who knows how long – that infernal sound leaking from between her slack dead lips.

Billie remembered well the sensation and Void pinpoints inside of her where to draw each ability from. Daud explained that the summon came from a spot just under the breastbone – it came from the same place as crawling fear, or extreme anxiety or panic. Summons were meant as protectors, so it made sense that the Void point for it would be the same as where fear and panic were housed. Billie seemed to understand, but was having trouble bringing up the sufficient triggers to initiate the process.

“Focus, Lurk. Dig deep, pull it through and direct it like this” Daud said, directing his gesture with a subtle downward angle. Lurk tried a few times and failed, and Daud put his hands on his hips and furrowed his brow in a familiar way that said ‘stop fucking around and just do it’. Billie knew that look all too well, and closed her eyes, breathing deeply and evenly to focus her energies and then gestured.

A figure appeared in a cloud of small black motes and wisps, and when Billie was able to see the figure clearly she dropped to her knees, the breath knocked from her and she felt her heart thump and turn heavily over in her chest. She gasped, frozen in shock. Daud watched carefully as the small figure looked around unsure of what to do next. He had suspected this, and observed to see what, if anything would happen now. Her hair was a shock of tight butterscotch and caramel curls, her skin a soft brown and her eyes tipped just enough to show a shadow of the blood of Wei-Ghon within her. Yes, he was certain it was her.

Billie found her breath and rose from her knees. “Deidre?” she croaked, her voice barely above a whisper. Deidre and Billie approached each other, and Billie took Deidre’s face in her hands. Billie was afraid that Deidre would be hard and cold, and her eyes would fill with black but no – it was just Deidre, her skin soft and warm and her eyes the same green as always – the green of still water and moss, and she looked exactly as she did moments before Radanis Abele had taken her life with a single blow to her skull. Tears streamed down Billie’s face, and Deidre was crying as well – only there seemed to be something wrong with her. She was trembling from the effort to keep her face from scrunching and twisted and Billie asked her what was wrong. Deidre pulled Billie in close and whispered in her ear “It hurts Billie, being here again – alive, it hurts. I didn’t know it would be like this, I just wanted to see you again, touch you again. I love you, Billie. I love you.” Billie watched in horror as Deidre’s face finally crumpled and the pain overtook her. She was jerking and twitching, a deep keening forming at the back of her throat. All Billie could do was hold her. Summons only lasted a short time, but as Billie held Deidre in her arms trying to will the pain from her – it became the longest moment of her life. Deidre began to tremble and shimmer, and she looked up at Billie one last time with tears in her eyes. “I love you Billie, it was worth it – every second.” Billie held Deidre tightly - whispering back to her with all the love in her heart, the secret things she used to say, the pet names she used and when Deidre faded back into the Void, Billie stood with her arms tightly around herself savoring the last of Deidre’s smell and warmth as it faded into the cold night air and Billie Lurk sank to her knees once again, her hands crossed over her chest rocking back and forth, back and forth trapped in a private hell that no one could help her out of.

Thomas, Cholly and Joplin watched in awestruck horror. Thomas had known about Deidre and though he didn’t know much it was clear that what Deidre and Billie had shared those years ago was enough for this to be the moment that broke Billie Lurk. Cholly and Joplin did not know what to say – seeing Captain Foster this way, staring blindly out into nothing with her mouth wrenched open, gasping for breath and silently sobbing with tears and snot running freely down her face had shaken them up. Daud crossed his arms across his chest, and while he was satisfied that he had been correct about Billie’s summon ability he was in no way pleased with the circumstances by which it had happened. He felt an anger building inside of him, an anger at the cruelty and sadness of this moment. He would never ask Lurk to perform this again, and he knew that Billie never do so again on her own.

He started to walk toward Billie, and she suddenly snapped into full attention. She looked up at him with pure rage and hatred, and when she rose to her knees the trembling was not from weakness but unbridled fury. Daud had never seen this animal rage in Lurk before, and he instinctively stepped back away from her. Billie was grinding her teeth and clenching her fists at her side as she walked toward Daud, and then stopped, suddenly bringing her hand up in a gesture unfamiliar to Daud. Before he had time to consider it, Lurk screamed with an inhuman throaty deep growl and the night sky exploded and lightning filled every inch of the rooftop engulfing all of them in untamed threads and ropes of blinding light and electricity. The air was ripped apart by the lightning, and before the stench of ozone had time to reach Daud the sound of the rending air slowed to a low drawn out ratcheting and then silence as time stopped and the atmosphere filled with shades of violet and black.

Daud opened his eyes, the afterimages of the lightning burned into the backs of his eyes. When his vision cleared he saw threads and long unbroken swaths of glittering crystal that crisscrossed in front of and all around him. It was the _lightning_ frozen in time. Daud gently touched a delicate thread of it, unsure what he would feel when he did so. It felt like cold glass, dead of any charge but full of still rays of light broken into various spectral colors sending sharp prismatic shapes of light scattering in random spatters across the rooftop. His eyes knew no names or meaning for many of these colors and his mind bent in on itself trying to assign some sort of context to what his brain was unable to process. Through the lattice of frozen bolts, Daud could see the still figures of Thomas with his hands covering his eyes, Cholly mid-duck with his arms over his head and Joplin standing casually with his chin up and his arms crossed over his thin chest, his eyes hidden by the streaks of lightning reflecting off the thick lenses of his glasses. Lurk was still, her face frozen in a state of extreme conflict. He could read the rage and the shock on her face, and could see the beginnings of realization and regret edging in around her features. None of them looked injured in any way, and there was little Daud could do but wait.

In what seemed like hours or perhaps mere seconds, Daud felt the first stirrings the hairs standing on the back of his neck, and felt his blood beginning to vibrate. Baleton tore itself asunder, and the buildings and streets twisted and bent up around his building at impossible angles and the Outsider appeared walking slowly past the still form of Billie, absently trailing his pale hands through the frozen lightning. The fragile glowing streaks glittered at his fingertips, the only sound now the fracturing of the lightning into tiny razor-sharp blackened shards that tinkled to the ground at his feet, and crunched into puffs of black dust under the heavy heels of his boots. The smell of copper and sterile dust choked Daud’s nose as the Outsider drew closer, and a dry unearthly chill wove itself through the damp cold of the night air. Daud could not help but notice the Outsider’s further deterioration. The Outsider appeared to be shrinking into himself somehow, his features stretched even thinner over his frame and his skin had lost its relatively life-like appearance. Whatever human qualities the Outsider had seemed to be slowly giving way to something far older, something dry and ancient. His eyes had gone the dull gray-black of spent coal, the high shine of them muddied and dim.

“Just like old times, isn’t it Daud – training your Whalers for a fight. It feels good to have them back at your side, doesn’t it?” The Outsider stood before Daud, gesturing with his arms out in his familiar way and didn’t seem to notice the splinters of lightning that had pierced the flaking dry skin of his hands and fingers. Daud could see in nauseating detail inside the bloodless wounds, could see winks of bleached bone through torn skin, withered gray cords of tendon twitching and stretching with each movement. “This time you won’t win, Daud. No powers that you or your Whalers have or concoct will save you now. Rose isn’t like Delilah – someone you can throw into a painting and trap in the Void. In just a few short weeks, Rose’s work will be finished – and the end of all that is known will born in a rush of blood. If you want to stop Rose, you’ll need to aim for a different target. Long ago you killed an Empress and saved the Empire. Who would you kill to save the world? There are times when I delight in seeing lives end and chaos spread, but this is not one of them. You are reaching the last choices you will ever make, Daud – and the hardest. Choose wisely, this is the moment just before the lights all go out - this time for good.”

"Wait!

The Outsider turned. "Yes, Daud?" 

"What did you do to that girl you sick bastard!"

"I gave her what she wanted, Daud in exchange for a favor. She wanted to see Billie Lurk again, and so I granted her a pathway to do so."

"You know what I mean. Why did you have to do that to her, to make it hurt like that?" 

"Daud, when people are born a space opens in the fabric of reality to allow for them to exist. When people meet their fate and die, that space fills in behind them when they leave. Sometimes it is reused, sometimes it is not. In this case, Deidre's space did not open back up for her. Have you ever tried to force something into a vessel that has no space for it? My magic allowed for her to return for a short while and she may continue to return as Billie Lurk sees fit. What my magic cannot do is spare her the pain of her body returning to a place that fate has determined she may not go. I have no control over fate, Daud. That is controlled by... something, some _one_ else in the Void. Only that One can reopen a space in this world and allow the dead to escape their fate. It happens, but very rarely. So tell me Daud, if I give someone exactly what they wanted most am I to blame for the consequences of their choices and actions when they finally get it?"

Before Daud could answer, the Outsider spun into a whirlwind of jagged black motes and faded away, and the Void receded suddenly leaving a vacuum that accelerated time around the bent edges of the quickly fading dimension of the Void. Baleton righted itself with a deep gritty groan – the very stones and earth screaming as they settled back into quiet reality. As the last of the Void faded from the night air, the truncated lightning burst harmlessly into all directions around the fractures left by the Outsider and with a low aural ‘pop’ disappeared as quickly as it had appeared leaving the Whalers and the two boys with nothing to say, and much to think about. Daud would find a way to explain what happened to Lurk, but he knew better than to try to talk to her now.

Daud turned to look out over Baleton, the moon shining out on the black water of the bay for as far out as he could see. He lit a cigarette with steady hands, and calmly smoked as he allowed his thoughts to become colder, his heart shrinking to a cold stone in his chest. He understood what had to be done now, and his mind was already halfway through a plan by the time he flicked the spent butt off the rooftop and down into the quiet streets.


	72. Daud, closing in on the target

_Daud perched high up on the rooftop checking his pocketwatch every few minutes. It was nearly time to meet Martin, but he could see from his vantage point that Martin had not yet arrived at his building in the Old Port District. The building was boarded up all around the bottom now, and looked to have missed the worst of the damage being at the top of a long slope. Daud looked at his pocketwatch again. It was a few minutes after the agreed time. He wondered if there had been some kind of hold up at the Hound Pits. Finally, he saw a figure in the dark making way toward the building, and Daud blinked closer in to the top of one of the old street lamps to make sure it was Martin. He watched Martin look around and then let himself in, and Daud waited until he saw the glow of the lamps inside to make his move. He blinked over to the small balcony on the Hound Pits side, and slowly opened the small window there and crawled in. Martin stood at his small table, his face pale and his hand crunched in a fist around something. Looked like trash. Martin looked up with a strange look on his face, and asked Daud to have a seat. It was time to talk about a contract. He couldn’t say that he was surprised at what Martin was asking him to do, and timing was of the essence. Daud didn’t want to take the contract, but the coin was good, good enough to assure that he would never have to touch a blade again. Daud listened as Martin laid out his plan. He would arrange to have Corvo killed and his body would find its way to Daud’s hideout. Daud could turn in Corvo’s body and posessions, and the 30,000 coin would be his payment for the contract. This was not to Daud’s liking, but time was running out and Daud wanted nothing more than to leave Dunwall. The 30,000 coin would add a nice bit to his already considerable savings. He had no intention of sharing this with his Whalers – once he got the money, he never intended to see any of them again. He had originally considered killing them all on his way out, but at this point leaving and taking the bond with him would be enough. They’d never find him. Except Lurk – he knew that come hell or high water she’d find him eventually. He’d think about that later. The plan seemed simple enough. Martin intended to lead his Overseers to the throne with Emily as proxy, and for that to happen effectively, Pendleton and Havelock would need to be eliminated. Daud would take out Pendleton and Havelock while Corvo’s body was making its way to the Flooded District. A body drop wouldn’t be an issue either – Martin assured him that he would make sure Daud got the ‘reward’ unhindered. Daud agreed, but privately began preparing an alternative plan. Something wasn’t quite adding up about all of this, particularly with the dreams he had been having about Corvo. He had fought Corvo in a recent dream and won, but Daud knew it was more Void than it was dream. Still, if Martin intended to take out Corvo himself that would certainly make things less complicated. Daud agreed, and they shook hands. Martin asked Daud if he had seen his rooftop. Daud was taken aback – Martin knew that he had seen it and he wasn’t sure why Martin was asking. Martin got a strange gleam in his eye, and his fist was rhythmically squeezing whatever it was in his hand into a smaller and smaller ball. Tighter and tighter. Daud could see bits of something mixed with the paper – leaves? Petals? He and Martin walked up to the rooftop and stood looking out over Dunwall. It was relatively quiet, the only lights nearby were those coming from the Hound Pits. Daud looked around at the mess on the rootop. There was a stained cot (blood?) there, a dirty white dress – the remnants of what looked like an intimate evening. Dirty whiskey glasses, cigarette butts. From somewhere far off Daud heard music drifting up on the night air, and inexplicable smells of roasting meat and incense. All around as far as he could see, twinkles of multicolored lights winked on at once. Ships began sounding bells and horns. What the fuck? Daud looked over at Martin, but somehow he had gotten from Daud’s side to the far side of the building without making a sound. Martin was no longer in his Overseer’s uniform. He was wearing just pants now and looked like he had been on a week-long bender – his hair an uncharacteristic mess, and he smelled about as bad as he looked. Martin waved him over, and pointed down into the alley. It was dark down there, so dark he couldn’t see all the way to the bottom. Wait, he had been here. Hadn’t he had a job here? He looked up at Martin, but he was gone. Daud knew that he had to get to the bottom of the alleyway. He summoned an Assassin to send down into the dark to flush out any potential collateral damage. Wait, he had done this. He knew what was next, and was powerless to do anything but follow the pre-determined path. He blinked down into the alley, and just as he suspected his Assassin stood there looking at him while at the back of the alleyway in a pool of light a boy bent over a body, feasting on it. Daud braced himself for the damning noise that he knew was going to come from the Assassin, and as if on cue the air was split was the humming and spitting of what sounded like a factory floor knee deep with bone charms. Daud tried to shut it out of his mind, and pulled the mask from the Whaler finding the same long-dead face of Lily underneath, her hair hanging limply, and the piercing noise louder still as it spilled over her cracked tongue and mottled lips. Daud looked down the other end of the alley, not surprised to see a tall brick wall where the opening to the alleyway had been. This time he knew what to do, and braced himself. He brought his hand roughly to Lily’s neck, his stomach turning at the cold slack give of the thin skin slipping easily over the putrefying layers of fat and muscle. He walked her back to the wall, like he had done not too long ago with another woman in another time and bent her back at a painful angle, poising his blade just so under her rounded midsection so that his blade would stop two hearts with a single stroke. He tightened his grip. This time there were no apologies or regrets in his thoughts and as he tensed his forearm and bicep for the thrust, a small voice from the end of the alley stopped him. Daud turned, infuriated at being interrupted and when he saw the boy’s face he dropped his blade in shock. The boy’s face was covered with clots and gobbets of fresh gore, streaks of thick fluid and shreds of tissue stuck to his chin, his neck, the thin shirt. In that moment, Daud remembered. He remembered it all. Karnaca, Dunwall, the Actor, the chair with the straps. All of it. As his memories unlocked and flooded his brain, and the taste of the Actor filled his mouth, and he choked on phantom gristle and thick chunks of soft innards. He could taste the food that the Actor had eaten, the sharp bite of his digestive juices, and the fetid swamp taste of his lower guts. Daud staggered back, struggling to stand as he swayed in half-faint. He kept tripping over things in the alleyway, a broken perfume bottle, hair combs, muddy hair-ribbons. The world spun and he fell onto his back on the damp cobblestones. The boy bent over him, and gently laid a hand on Daud’s shoulder and spoke, and Daud could feel the charnel heaviness of the boy’s breath on his face. “You’re aiming for the wrong target” and the boy began to grin, his mouth stretching wider than his face, his mouth lined with ragged broken teeth. “Wrong target. Wrong target. Wrong target. Wrongtarget wrongtargetwrongtarget.” The boy’s voice deepened, and his face warped and stretched until Daud was looking up at his own face, his teeth bloody, his eyes black, weeping bloody tears. Over the boy-man’s shoulder, Daud could see a red-headed woman sneaking her way around them and toward … Daud looked around wildly – Lily! He saw her just as the red-headed woman reached for Lily and took her into her arms, weeping. He looked back up, and the boy-man had disappeared. The air was full of the screaming hissing of bonecharms, and Daud held his ears as he staggered to his feet. He made his way slowly toward Lily and the red-headed woman. The air had gone thick, as if the sound had broken its boundaries and began to choke the very air. He struggled through the thickness of the air, now like wading through deep water. He had to get to Lily. The red-headed woman turned her face toward the light, and Daud knew he was looking at Rose Everleigh. “Help her” Rose said. “Help her.” Daud reached for them, and the air tore itself apart and Daud fell into some kind of rip – something deep and old waiting at the bottom and ___

__  
_ _

Daud woke, gasping for breath – his heart racing. The hissing and spitting and infernal singing was all around him now, pressing into his ears. He made his way quickly downstairs to where Lurk was sleeping in Lily’s room. He shook her roughly, “Lurk – get up. GET UP. You need to go to the 'Flask and get Lib Fury now, and bring her back here. I don’t have time to explain. Just go. Now. NOW.” Daud turned and ran from the room, leaving Lurk confused but alert. He ran to where Thomas was sleeping in the guest room next to his own and woke him as well, telling him to go get Anne Bonny right away. “Just trust me, go get her and bring her back here. Yes, I know what time it is – just go. NOW.”

Daud ran over to his room, scrambling together what gear he could. He pulled on his old red jacket, and then strapped his baldric on over it as quickly and tightly as he could, and pulled on his gloves. He wished he had thought to make some ampoules for his wristbow, but he would have to make do with his blade and his mark. He pulled the straps of his boots tight over his calves, and then slipped out the window before Thomas and Billie could stop him with questions. As Daud blinked out over Baleton and toward the Wilds, he could see Billie and Thomas rushing across the town center.

Daud blinked down as he approached the path leading toward the Wilds and began to run. The sound was all around him now, deafening. He gestured a Void Gaze, and to his astonishment he could make out a glowing target barely within range – and the target was moving. Fast. He could not remember when he felt more alive, more powerful. The ground blurred beneath his feet, and he could barely feel his feet touching the ground. He was closing in on it, and it looked like whatever it was, it was heading toward the strid from the Wilds direction. He gestured another Void Gaze, satisfied to see he was heading straight toward it.


	73. The lily and the rose

Lily opened her eyes and looked around. She had come to recognize the difference between dreams and these strange visits to the Void. She did not recognize where she was – it looked like an ordinary alleyway at first glance. At her feet were bits of an ornate broken bottle, probably a perfume bottle. It looked like it had been there a while. There were splintered pieces of carved bone hair-combs, and other bits of discarded lady-things here and there.

_…lily, he’s coming to kill you… you need to run…_

She tugged at her ears lightly, and wiggled her fingers around in them – she thought she had heard something. It was so soft she couldn’t tell what it was though, maybe just wind whispering through the trash on the ground?

She could hear something louder coming from the dark end of the alley, a wet ripping and tearing, the sounds of eating – no, devouring. It didn’t sound like a particularly large creature but she knew better than to interrupt a feeding animal of any size. She tried to squint her eyes to see if she could see what it was, but it was too dark down there to tell. She looked up the other way toward where the street should be, but saw nothing but long tall windowless walls bending slightly in over the dark alleyway for as far as her eyes could see. She knew that she could walk an eternity up that alleyway and never reach the end, and turning to look behind would only reveal that she had taken no steps at all. There was little she could do now but wait.

She quietly crept away from the creature, looking for a place to hide. She looked up to see if there was anything there to climb, a ledge or something she could perch on and to her surprise saw a man looking down into the alleyway from the roof of the building. He did not seem to be able to see Lily or whatever the creature was in the alley feeding. The man was throwing something but she couldn’t quite tell what it was. The sun was behind his head, and she couldn’t make out his face clearly nor could she see what he was throwing. She shielded her eyes, and held out her hand to catch what he was throwing. Flowers? She caught a lily first, and then a rose - a _black_ rose. She stood looking at it, dumbfounded as the other black roses fell at her feet.

_…lily, he’s coming to kill you… you need to run…_

Lily stopped still and cocked her head. She heard that same soft slithery sound. This time it didn’t sound like the wind. She could have sworn it was more like words now, sibilant almost-words, something vaguely familiar about the sound of it. Did it have anything to do with the man on the roof?

She looked up sharply at the man, and she could see his face clearly now even though the sun still haloed unbearably bright around his head. He looked shocked – had he seen her? She couldn’t help but smile at the sight of his comically large ears jugging out from his head. Ears much like her own jug ears. Just like her own jug ears. _(…father?)_ and somehow this time she knew it to be true. He backed away from the ledge and she lost sight of him.

_…lily, he’s coming to kill you… you need to run…_

What? Where was this whispering sound coming from? She put it out of her mind – right now she needed to get the man’s attention. Maybe he could get her out of here.

She opened her mouth to shout up to him but before she could make a sound, an Assassin appeared in front of her from seemingly nowhere. She stepped back, startled – she had never seen a Whaler in person before but had seen drawings in the broadsheets that accompanied the yearly memorial to the long-dead Empress Jessamine Kaldwell. The Whaler simply stood there silently except for the aspirations magnified through the filter and moving only in what was required to breathe and balance. Lily walked to the Whaler, and cautiously stretched out her hand to the mask – her reflection in the dark lenses drawing her in closer.

_…lily, he’s coming to kill you… you need to run…_

Her thoughts slowed, and the whispers were unable to distract her. Her fingers brushed the lenses lightly, and then suddenly she was looking out from _inside_ the mask. She could feel the uniform snug around her figure, the hard swell of her belly popping the buttons from the jacket. Her mind sank and sank further down, someplace where it was cold and dark and wet. She breathed in, and the sea filled her and she drifted. She looked out through the lenses and felt Daud’s presence as he drew closer. He was nearby. Up on the roof. Now, down here with her. She felt heavy, sodden and slow – her brain waterlogged and disintegrating. She opened her mouth to speak to him, but all that came out was the sound of her child - _their_ child singing from deep within her – the gentle song of the leviathans, the shrieking of their tortured bones.

He was reaching for her now, pulling off the mask. She tried to speak, to move - but was trapped inside this dead body somewhere deep – too deep to reach him. His hand was at her throat, and he was backing her against the wall of the alleyway. Their child wailed the leviathan song louder and louder as the point of the blade dimpled the bottom swell of her belly. From far away she heard a boy’s voice, but could not understand what he was saying. Daud turned from her, and before she could collapse a hand reached out and pulled her up and out of that trap of dead flesh. She gasped as she felt the weight of the sea leave her, and opened her eyes and looked into the eyes of her mother. She melted into her arms, breathing in her warm smell. Sandalwood, rose, cigarettes, sweat, heat, love. It was real this time. She could do nothing but weep as her mother held her and shielded her eyes from the boy talking to Daud. She could hear Daud approach, and her mother’s words … _help her, help her_ … were still echoing in her ears when she was woken up in the cabin by a sharp knocking.

Lily lay still for a moment, the smell and warmth of her mother still with her. She was not surprised to see that she woke with the lily and the rose in her hands. She turned over as best she could and lay the flowers on the small table by the bed. She would need to put these in water. Lily squinted at the pocketwatch she kept on the small table. It was Lib’s day to visit her, but it was pretty early. She didn’t really expect her until after lunchtime but perhaps the ‘Flask needed her for something in the afternoon. Lily stretched and scratched her belly as she walked to the small cabin door. “I’m coming! Hold on!” she said through the volley of knocks. Lib must be really anxious to see her. Lily opened the door, and H.H. stood there smiling his familiar crooked smile. “Hello, Lily-girl.”


	74. Lily on the run

Lily found herself oddly calm as she stood there holding the door open, staring at H.H. and saying nothing. She was thinking about seeing her mother, and her warning. Lily knew without a doubt that H.H. was here to kill her. She just couldn’t let him know that she knew that. Lily stepped back as if to gesture him in, but H.H. stood where he was squinting up at the sky and grinning with his hands in his pockets. He rocked back and forth on his heels a little, seeming not to have a care in the world. “Nah, no-thanks Lily-girl – it’s just too nice out this morning to be cramped up in a dark old shed, don’t you think? No, girl – why don’t you come out here with me?” She found it amusing that as strong as the glints of murder were behind his eyes that he was evidently unable to enter the shed. She knew that if he could, he’d have been in there already. She played along, standing at the threshold with her arms crossed over the top of the swell of her belly, hoping she looked convincingly bored.

“What do you want, H.H.?”

H.H. walked up to her and laid his hand up on the door frame and leaned in close to her, as close as he could get without crossing the threshold. Lily stood firmly, unwavering even as the smell of him washed over her in thick nauseating waves. He looked much like he always had, clean and neatly dressed but up close his smell was pure dark earthy decomposition – the stench of potatoes liquefying in the dark dirt of a cellar, the smell of sour earth turned to reveal the remains of some unidentifiable creature, its bones slick with shreds of wet brown rot. She slowed and shallowed her breathing _in, one two three… out, one two three_ and struggled to control her urge to vomit as he spoke close to her ear, his breath ripe grave-dust on her face as he spoke softly to her.

“Why, Lily-girl I just wanted to pay you a visit and talk all friendly-like. I heard you were in trouble, and here you are – big as a barrel and all alone out here. Hoooo whee, the Knife of Dunwall himself. You sure aim high while you’re on your back, don’t you girl. I’d of never taken the old man to be the type to chase young tail. Hell, any tail for that matter. You must have been something else, girl to turn that old man’s eye. How’d you do it, Lily? I’m gonna guess you got some of your momma’s talents. Yeah, Lily-girl. I see I got your full attention now. Your momma was quite a woman, Lily-girl. She brought all that whore-learning she got at the Golden Cat right here to Baleton. Won’t no one could match her, Lily. She was the first woman I ever had, did you know that? By the gods could she fuck, and damned if she didn’t like it rough. Ain’t never had better, Lily-girl. It was like she was born to it. It was in her blood. Bet it’s in yours too, sweetheart. Ain’t no way you’d get that old man to fuck you otherwise. I knew your momma’s trick. Knew it well. What’s yours? Oh, you don’t have to tell me, girl. I’ll find out soon enough.”

”Oh, don’t look at me like that, darlin’. It hurts my heart to see you like this. Trying to look so brave standing there scared like that. Oh yes, I know you’re scared, Lily-girl. I can _smell_ it. I bet your daddy smelled the same way right before he ate that last bullet. Don’t look so surprised girl, my Rosie told me all about your daddy. You clearly got some of his blood too, Lily-girl. He was a traitor - just like you. He turned on those who were fool enough to trust him. Turned on them just to get up another step higher. He got all the way to the top, got caught, and fed himself a coward’s bullet rather than fight his way out. Ol’ Teague Martin. Oh yes, girl – _Overseer_ Martin, the very one. Rosie told me he fucked your momma good, and then sent her packing with a bastard in her belly. Ain’t it funny how life repeats itself. Hoooo boy. Daud. The old Knife himself. I can hardly believe it, girl. That old man fucked you good, didn’t he? Filled your belly with damaged goods and sent you right on your way. Good gods, I can’t _imagine_ what kind of bastard will come crawling out of _you_ , Lily-girl. Now, I asked nice once already and I’m not gonna ask again. You come outside that shack right now. If you don’t, I’m gonna burn it down with you in it.”

H.H. had been looking down, nearly whispering in her ear but when he looked her in the eyes and promised her that she would burn, she knew he meant it. She didn’t have much time. A whisper rose like a curl of smoke from her gut. _…lily, he’s going to kill you… you need to run…_ She wondered where the ‘Wilds lookouts were. She knew that the Elder woman had sent them to watch the cabin, but if they were there, they weren’t making any moves. She looked down as if deciding to give in, buying a few precious seconds to think. Plan. How was she going to run like this? She was heavy, rooted to the ground. She sent her thoughts inward. To her mother, her child, her self - and stepped across the threshold and out into the yard. She kept her eyes down, watching H.H. carefully from the corner of her eye as he stood watching her. From deep inside herself, she heard a reply to her thoughts and could do little more than trust what the voice she heard was telling her to do. 

Lily took a step, and then doubled over clutching her belly and began to dry heave. She stumbled and wobbled, and she could see H.H. making his way over to her side as she began to pant and wheeze. When he got close enough for her to smell, she felt a heat rising from her middle – a burning that quickly became nearly unbearable as it tore through her veins, her muscles, her brain and her gut. It was not pain, but something that rode on the very edges of it. She could feel something electric pulling through her, and when it reached the very edges of her skin and released, she felt rushing in behind it a wave of crackling energy that filled her from the inside out. H.H. bent over her, and at the moment the shadow of his head crossed the shadow of her own she shot up suddenly, smashing the back of her head hard into H.H.’s downturned face. She felt something give in the bones and skin of his face, and before he could react she was off and running. 

She felt light and fast, her feet barely touching the ground. She knew where to go now, and simply let her feet take her there as she ran. The ground blurred beneath her feet, at first a step skipped and then two and the wind whipped at her face as she found her feet above the ground more often than touching it. Lily gave herself over to this strange power, and for no reason she could understand found herself laughing wildly as she made her way to the strid, and to the old abandoned hemlock processing buildings that her mother and her child were guiding her toward.


	75. Daud on the hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Inside my mind is the last place you want to be."

Daud ran headalong into the salt-edged wind, the chill of the air stinging his cheeks and the tips of his ears. His breathing was even, slow and steady – his movements automatic and precise. All was silent around him as he cast the Void Gaze to keep his bearing. He could not hear his own footfalls, or the whishing and snaps of the reeds and tall grasses as he sliced through them. Nettlespores triggered and unfolded wetly on either side of him, their stinging acid burning through here and there on his breeches, but his mind associated only the sensation of the sharp bits of broken chain braided into the sturdy whip the Actor used on him during his brutal training runs. All of it fresh in his mind now, jammed into his forethoughts - he was the man Daud, the boy Daud running, running with the Actor waiting at the side of the track, cracking the training whip at his legs, his thin bony back with every lap. He had learned quickly not to fall under blows or exhaustion, and his spindly child’s legs learned from brutal muscle memory punishments to keep him up and running even as his energy flagged, his will shriveled – but he ran, always ran.

His target was up ahead – he could see the glowing guiding him, hear it singing to him. He ran ahead, and he would catch the target like he caught first the rats in the dog-run and then later the dogs that had lost the fights at the Hound Pits the night before. Catch them, tear them apart while they lived still – learning to deal death before the target hits the ground. Their sounds – animal squealing and screaming as his small fingers dug into them, tore into them, his mind running away to hide as each kill added another red ring around his vision. His blood learned to rise to the call of their blood and pooled in shimmering rings around his vision vibrating with the excitement of murder, pulsing in harmony with their racing doomed hearts. _Run dog_ he heard woven into the wind that he cut through _Run dog_ \- always ‘dog’, never his name.

Shivering and cringing in the chair as the straps tightened on his dirty ankles, his head leaned back and gently cradled, the Actor pouring in arcane words with whispers and a charm trying to reach something locked inside of the boy, an ancient pattern etched in the boy’s blood. Digging and leaving behind holes that did not connect, caves that knew no light, dead ends with no exits, locked boxes and pockets of memory – paths wormed through his brain, looping around in ways to trap and strangle any who dare try to enter. Many places to hide inside his mind, many places to rest while his body ran, running ahead closer now to the target – an older boy now, new targets - a drunk, or a vagrant or a criminal bought in a clandestine transaction between Guard and Client, always the same ending, body thuds to the ground in the dog-run, hood torn from head, the confusion in their eyes as the feral boy-dog approached, some kicked at him or tried to fight but then came their fear, their panic, their terror as they pissed themselves at the end – the smell of it all heady in his mind even now, wisps of it preserved forever in one of the dead-ends of his mind. _Go ahead dog, you know what to do_ chasing them, sometimes at the last minute stopping, the Actor swearing about dirty kills – bullet in the head, waste of perfectly good time and money. _Get this shit out of here, dog_ small boy with a large load of man-body on his back, legs trembling as he wobbled his way to the river – dump them in, hagfish frenzy and then gone.

Running, running Lily up ahead – Lily, the girl heavy with child, his child – their child _run dog, get her_ \- the boy confused now, not understanding the changes – hair sprouting under his arms, creeping down his belly, his cries of pain cracked and deeper now, the boy knows he wants something, needs something, a feeling grows daily at the base of his belly, at the root of his stones. Low mean chuckle – _confused by your own pecker, dog?_ hot shame without knowing why, humiliation at this unintended reaction as he bends over a kill, blood flooding his senses blood pulsing through him blood stiffening him in an unfamiliar way, aching pleasure within a deep hidden part of himself, pleasure drowning in a deep well of confusion, pain, shame. _Can’t very well take you to the ‘Cat, now can I, dog? I’ll have something for you in a day or two_ and locks the boy’s cage, night falls – a blur until the girl is thrown into the dog-run. A whore, much too young and already ruined – the bastard of a Man in a High Place stuck fast like a stubborn burr inside of her – freshly bruised, skin split on her face, her lips. Looking up at him, dark eyes, black hair, trembling at his feet – his mind unable to move him, confusion, fear _for fuck’s sake you know what to do – do it!_ hesitation, and the Actor swears and jerks her up by the arm and takes her away – the dirty kill comes, but only much later in the night. He takes her to the river, his only thought is that he is grateful that she is light. He watches her face as she sinks under the water, her dead eyes wide, staring into him until she jerks and twists just below the surface under the frenzy of the hagfish. Soon all he sees is a sliver of the moon reflected on the ripples of black water. Jessamine, she looked like Jessamine – he remembers. He remembers it all. Void Gaze, up ahead close now.

The singing louder now, buildings coming into view. A blur of light ahead bright in the dim contrast of the Gaze, a glow encased in a compact body – Lily. Behind her running, H.H., he could smell the blood in H.H.’s thoughts, could smell the rot from his insides – alive, but not alive. A soul hooked inside an animated corpse rotting from the inside. Red around his vision now, rippling inward to a tight focus. The target, close now rounding the corner of the first building and darting up alongside the rocky ridge that separated the rush of the strid waters from the crumbling boardwalk. Quiet, gaining on the target – a whisper in a whirlwind, a thought sent up to the partially collapsed roof of the first building, three stories up and feet barely touching at the landing point before running again – parallel now, down below through the rotting gaps between floors and crumbled walls he sees them – he is running without disturbing the layers of broken boards and shards of slate shingles, feet floating with a light touch - they cannot hear him, do not sense him. Blink now to the top of the second building one story down, Lily slowing down – H.H. gaining fast. Blink to the third building, curiously sound and solid – there is something fizzing around his feet, some stray unfamiliar energies from below. Reaching the corner of this third and last building, he opens his mind to Lily willing her to hear him, willing her to STOP, STOP NOW and she does, turns abruptly and H.H. nearly plows right into her, he's circling her now, edging her closer to the strid and NOW (!) graceful, precise, a leap up and out into nothing, arm raised, teeth bared in a silent grimace – firm gripped blade aimed, death from above, dropping in for the kill, silent, flex and …

The tip of Daud’s blade caught H.H. in the soft space where neck met shoulder, shattering the small bones and tearing easily through his windpipe and lung, the tip catching only the briefest moment on the tough meat of his heart before bursting through it. Daud’s knee caught H.H. right in the middle of his back on the way down, snapping his spine and Daud rode H.H.’s body down as it jackknifed backward at an impossible angle. Daud landed lightly and then stomped down hard on H.H.’s upturned face to further break the body in half, and then stomped again to free his blade – ripping it upward roughly through his sternum, and the spray of blood and small gobbets hung in the air as time slowed and then stopped around him.

Daud looked around – Lily was standing silent and still, her brow furrowed and her face frozen in grimace of disgust. The waters of the strid stood in a frozen rush, and all around was silence. The air around him crackled and fizzed with a bright hard edge, like an angry pylon a split second before certain death. He turned to the third building, and something approached him from within. His mind could not make sense of what he was seeing, and if there were words hidden in the static bursts of the noise he was unable to make sense of them as such.

It was light of some kind – a bending and shifting mass that seemed both sharp corner and smooth curve all at once, glints of silvery light spinning off in sharp splinters from the center of it. There was something almost like pain as his mind tried to grasp what he was seeing. As it approached, it took a familiar form and with a low chuckle said “This is going to take some getting used to.” The Elder woman stood before Daud, wreathed in light that spun itself off into wisps of the negative of itself, edged in a nearly violent shade of pink. The colors wrapped around themselves, both physical things and ethereal light at the same time. “Smoke?” Daud could think of nothing intelligible to say, and took a Sanjica from the pack that the Elder woman was offering. The juxtaposition of the mundane and improbable had struck him dumb. The Elder woman held out a fingertip and lit his cigarette with a small spark and Daud drew in the sweet smoke giving his mind time to clear before attempting to say anything.

She looked at him, shaking her head. Where the withered empty eye sockets had been were now eyes of some sort – the smooth silvery surfaces reflecting facets of light like sun off fresh wet fishscales. Was he in the Void? He looked around, and with the exception of everything around him being frozen in time he could find nothing to suggest he was anywhere but where he had been. “I don’t have to take you anywhere to talk to you, Marked one. Not all of us operate in such ways.” She smoked a cigarette of her own, a sight that would have been amusing to Daud under different circumstances. “There is much we need to discuss, Daud. Come, there is something you need to see.”

Daud followed the Elder woman into the third building, looking around in wonder at the relatively modern and well-kept laboratory and apothecary inside. From the outside, the building appeared marginally more well-kept than the other two but nothing would prepare someone for what was inside. “Did you think we squatted at moon-lit mudholes mixing up elixirs for our people like ignorant witches?” Daud was not as disconcerted as he thought he would be at having his mind read in such a plain way. He saw it only as helpful in skirting the more difficult conversations for which words often didn’t exist.

The Elder woman gestured toward the center of the room, and a large orb appeared spinning lazily over the large circle on the floor. Perched at the edge of the circle was the bent form of the Elder women he knew, and he did not need to approach the form to know that it was devoid of life. The Elder woman did not seem to be concerned or bothered by the dead shell of herself, and instead pointed to the back corner of the room that the orb now illuminated in that strange black-pink light.

There was something there hissing and spitting, an amorphous black mass that radiated rage from its center in black pulses. Daud found it familiar but was not able to identify anything or anyone specific. “I believe you saw Lily’s mother last night – her true self, that is. This is Rose before you. Not the Rose that birthed Lily. This is what we call a corruption. This is something that came from someplace beyond your stars, and beyond even our own. There is no answer as to why it ended up in the Dreamlands – the Void, as you call it. These types of entities operate beyond a level of even our understanding. There is no ‘why’. There is only the fact that it encountered many things in the Void, and it corrupted – perhaps beyond any ability to reverse it.”

”Look closely, Marked one. How many faces do you recognize in that mess? How many thoughts can you read from it? So many voices, so many memories – so much human trash and refuse trailing back four thousand years. It corrupted this … thing. Twisted it with human greed and an insatiable thirst for power. You only see the freshest of the offal that makes it what it is – the stain of the witch Delilah, but I see all of it. All of them. I recognize many of those people – or rather what is left of them in there. My people, and at one time long ago _our_ people, Marked one - yours, mine - we were the same once. I can hold this corruption here for a short time. This thing Rose cannot coalesce wholly for as long as I have this part of it trapped here. Lily’s mother will remain free for a short time, and perhaps the Outsider, as you know him, will have a moment of peace.”

“I must let this thing go when the time comes, or your child will die. What Rose started must be finished. Before this, I could think of nothing but how necessary it was for the child to die. I know now that the child is not my enemy. The child is the enemy of our enemy, and we need for that child to live. There is something you must do when your child is born. Once the child is born, this corruption can be stopped but only you can stop it. Yes, Marked one – you _specifically_. There is much you need to know, but it is not my place to tell you. All you need to know you can find out from the Outsider. In the meantime, I have something for you – some place you can start.”

The Elder woman stepped close to Daud, and stirred the air between their faces with a gesture and between them appeared **∞**. At first Daud didn’t understand, but as he looked into the endless light of her eyes through the loops of the symbol, he realized what it meant. “Yes, Marked one – the Eyeless. What fools they were, still are. For four thousand years they have built and grown their cult on a single mistake – a mistake that you can now use to your advantage to end this. This is their mystery, Daud. I’m giving you the key to it.”

The Elder woman gestured again, and the symbol wobbled and uprighted. An **8** now hovered between them. I believe this number has some significance for you, Marked one. That is something you must take up with the Outsider. He will not call to you now – cannot in fact, but these Eyeless as these misguided fools call themselves have found a way to enter his part of the Void. None have been able to enter yet because of their ignorance, but in time they will find a way. That must not happen, Daud. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find them – they have spent the better part of twenty years looking for you, and I can see from your thoughts that you already know where to start. You can enter this point in the Void where they cannot. Once you are there inside the Void, the Outsider will tell you what you need to know. I imagine you have plenty of questions, and he will be in no position to hide those truths from you.”

Daud looked at the Elder woman and stubbed his cigarette out in a nearby tray where several other butts stuck out from a thin layer of sand. The Sanjica had cleared his mind and calmed his thoughts. The Actor was fading back to a darker place in his mind, though Daud knew that it would never be fully hidden again. That was something to think about later. The Elder woman looked over at him, reading a thought he hadn’t realized he was consciously having. “Yes, Marked one – our sleeping god is awake now, and it is time now for yours to sleep. I don’t know if we will meet again, but I’ll save you a smoke just in case. Go now. Leave me. Get that girl home, and for the love of all that’s sacred – clean up that damned mess you made out there.”

Daud turned and walked back out as the light faded at his back, stunned into silence. He was not sure what to think at this point but he was more than ready to do as the Elder woman suggested and get Lily back to Baleton. There was much for his Whalers to discuss this evening. He walked over to H.H.’s body, watching grimly as the thick gobbets and droplets slowly began to sink down to earth as time gently resumed, and the calm of the Sanjica wore off as suddenly as it had kicked in.

Daud was back in the moment and stood over the broken body looking down at it, daring it to move and breathing evenly – nostrils flaring at the smell of blood, eyes flashing and jaw set. His chin still down, he looked up from under his heavy brows at Lily. Lily saw it fully then, the full realization of the flash she had seen in his eyes those years ago when he had thrown her to the ground. She backed away slowly, cautiously. There was little left of the Mr. Merrock she had come to know. The white in his hair and beard were almost entirely gone. His hair was thicker, dark – nearly black with touches of chestnut, his face lean and his scars standing out in sharp relief to his craggy skin. He turned from her and raised his left hand toward the broken thing that was H.H. and Lily saw something that looked like pulses of some sort in a rough net-like shape envelop and lift H.H.’s grotesquely dripping body from the ground, and with a quick whip of Daud’s hand, H.H. was flung up and then down into the strid. The water took him down immediately. She felt sick thinking about being in the world under the strid, and wondered if she ever found herself there again if she would find one of the pale frog-fish men wearing a familiar face as it slithered through the thick glowing water feasting on the dead. Daud stood with his back to her for what seemed like a long moment. She could see he was deep in thought as he rubbed at his beard with a gloved hand. For a single second, a fleeting thought crossed her mind _run_ and Daud turned and glared at her as if she had spoken aloud.

She knew that she would not run, but she was afraid nonetheless and she could tell that Daud smelled the rank fear coming off of her as his nostrils flared and his face twitched. He was looking at her, staring at her midsection and came closer to her, raising his hand. She shrank away, her arms wrapping protectively around her middle. He grabbed one of her arms to hold her still, and pried it away from her middle. He brought his left hand close to her belly but did not touch it. She watched as the back of his glove began to glow with a yellow light, brighter and brighter through the leather of his glove until she could see the mark burning in clear detail through the old leather. It was then that she suddenly felt something like a flutter from within, small thumps like a tiny stream of bubbles – nothing like she had ever felt before. Daud let her go and drew back, the expression on his face complex and unreadable.

“I’m not going to hurt you, but If you try to run right now, I certainly will hurt you if I have to. You’re coming with me. I’m the only chance you have at surviving right now.”

Lily nodded quietly, knowing on some deep level that he was right – and she had no intention of leaving him now anyway. She asked where they were going, and he stopped and turned to her. “I’m taking you home.”


	76. Part 8: The Eighth Eternal

Billie stood out on Daud’s back service balcony, struck her flint with her clockwork hand and lit a cigarette with an ease she hadn’t felt in the years since she lost her arm. The arm that Joplin had crafted for her was continuing to work fluidly, the movements entirely integrated with her thought processes. She tried to put Jindosh’s mechanical men out of her mind – particularly the smaller, more human-sized variety she had seen while scouting around Karnaca in 1852. The workshop she had stumbled upon had been hidden well in the Aventa Quarter, but it didn’t take more than a few minutes to work out who it belonged to once she broke in. There was no possible way Jindosh could have safely made his way there to work without being heavily disguised, but once inside it was clear that any threat would have been immediately dealt with. To this day, Billie hadn’t figured out why Jindosh would have set up such a clandestine operation to work from, but it was a sure bet that the Duke had no idea about it. She wasn’t sure what these smaller mechanical men were being built for, and by the time she made her way back after the coup to follow up on some leads on her search for Daud, the workshop was abandoned and stripped of everything inside. She hoped that whoever had found this place had taken the time to destroy everything that was inside. The alternative was terrible to consider given the partially-assembled horrors she had seen there.

She knew without a doubt that if Jindosh had continued his work, those smaller creations would be walking unnoticed around Karnaca to this day – appearing to any who saw them as anonymous shopkeepers, beggars, whores. Soft human meat, wet and pliable covering an indestructible frame – capable of untold rapid unexpected murders and utterly unstoppable, following commands as given for a purpose that Billie had no idea of. What if he had taken it further and managed to integrate them _into_ humans instead of simply draping them with brainless human meat as a disguise? Would they think? Would they feel? She could certainly imagine that they could, given the ‘feeling’ in her own augmented arm and hand.

She could both feel and not feel with this clockwork hand – tactile sensations were both heightened and fuzzed at the same time. When Daud had intertwined his fingers with those of the hand up on the roof the previous evening, she could feel warmth and the ever-present low electrical hum of the Void rushing through his matter. She had always been able to feel the presence of the Void in him – even a casual brush or touch would send a slight fizzing sensation through her fingertips, but through these mechanical fingers it felt sharper – more defined. Was it like that for everyone that Daud had shared his abilities with? It was hard to say, as no one else had the same accessibility to Daud that she did. It was clear that her abilities were heightened, more so than Thomas’s even though both had shared the same bond with Daud in the past. It was somehow different now, though.

When Billie left Daud’s side in 1837 and boarded the first ship she could find heading out and away from the ruined city, she felt the Void within herself fade as the ship set course for open waters and Dunwall faded into the distance and finally disappeared. When the Void rushed through her once again down in Daud’s basement lab the feeling had been so familiar, yet there was a touch of some ‘other’ that reached deeper than those familiar sensations. It felt sharper and lighter than what Daud had shared with her and she knew beyond a doubt that the lightning she had summoned came entirely from this ‘other’ and not from any abilities Daud had shared with her in the past. Was this ‘other’ gifting her this, or awakening something that had always been there? Considering the Void conduit they had fashioned from H.H.’s hand, she hoped that what she was feeling was not coming from whatever Rose was. Billie had a gut feeling that Rose’s abilities would feel closer to Delilah’s than these ‘other’ sensations that she felt now. So where did this thread of lighter energy come from? Was it just an unexpected byproduct of the corruption, or was there something more to it? One way or other, she’d find out.

As for Deidre and what had happened up on Daud’s roof – she wasn’t ready to think about that right now, but when the time was right someone would pay for what had been done. They’d pay dearly for every second of Deidre’s suffering. Billie looked forward to making it last a long time. She knew more than a few tricks to extract as much life as possible from a target, while extending the pain out far past the point where life would normally expire. It would take her a while to figure out a plan and when she did, there would be nowhere in this world or the next or the Void itself to hide from Billie Lurk. She slowly closed off her thoughts from this as the first of the red shimmers began pooling at the edges of her vision. It was nice to know that the blood thirst was still there, and it would certainly be useful but now was not the time. Not now.

Billie took the last long drag from her cigarette and exhaled, and when the last of the plume of smoke melted away into the chilly air she turned and went back inside to join Ann, Thomas and Lib around Daud’s dining room table.

Billie took her seat at the table, settling in and sipping from her mug of black coffee. Ann was frowning slightly and fiddling with the edge of a well-worn but clean napkin nervously picking the threads along the edge into small frays. Lib sat back in her chair, her arms crossed over her chest, staring thoughtfully out into nothing. Thomas was writing on a large notepad, preparing for what would surely be a briefing when Daud returned. None of them were sure what to expect, and with someone as predictable as Daud or Hearne Merrock for that matter, the unexpected was always something to watch out for, and probably not a bad idea to be wary of.

Neither Billie nor Thomas questioned Daud in his insistence to make sure Ann and Lib were present when he returned. Each had noted the edge in his voice – an edge that bordered on approaching the chaotic fire with which he had summoned them to Baleton. Urgency was not in Daud’s blood, or at least not the tendency to show it. Not long after Thomas had stopped in at Ann’s, he sent a runner to the ‘Rat hole with a message for Joplin and Cholly to come to Bldg. #4 at their earliest convenience. His gut told him that they would be needed, and he had learned long ago to trust his instincts particularly when it came to matters such as these.

Within the half-hour, the quiet was broken by several loud raps coming from the back door. Though they knew the knocking was Cholly and Joplin, it didn’t stop the four of them from jumping slightly when they heard it. H.H. had not been seen since he disappeared from the ‘Rat Hole, leaving his marked hand behind. Ann had been well-caught up on the series of events, and though unafraid and not one to shrink from a solid fight – she wasn’t looking for this type of fight. Lib cautiously answered the back door, one hand firmly on the sleggja and then gestured the boys inside.

Though both had been on the roof of this building, neither had been fully inside Mr. Merrock’s house before and the wonder of small boys was clear behind their serious young men’s eyes. How many times had they heard H.H. trying his damndest to get someone inside this building? They were finally inside Old Man Merrock’s place - inside _Daud’s Lair_ and neither could believe what they were seeing: lots of dark mellowly polished wood, clean surfaces free of clutter, and a sense of understated quiet present in all they saw. It was rough but elegant in the stark plainness of the place – old wood, gently aged paint on the walls, age-clouded but clean windows, the air smelling slightly of lemon oil, old books, soap and clean linens. There was not a bonecharm or blade in sight. No trophy skulls from long-dead enemies, no torture-cages for unexpecting burglars – none of the things that they had heard tales of as younger boys, along with warnings that the Assassin Daud would come get them in their sleep if they didn’t listen to H.H.

Thomas could see their curiosity getting the better of them and took them around the house to show them around. He was interested to see what reaction, if any, Joplin had to the paintings of Delilah’s that Daud had in his home. Cholly and Joplin were silent as they looked around at the various knick-knacks and arcane items from all over the world placed tastefully around the house and as they walked up the stairs to the third floor Thomas was not surprised to see Joplin’s face tensing up as they got closer to the paintings. Thomas made no mention of the paintings, nor did he draw any attention to them, but he did notice that while Cholly just glanced at them Joplin would not look at them directly at all. He did not show them into Daud’s room – old habits die hard, and he would no more walk into Daud’s room uninvited now than he would have back at either of their old hideouts. He gestured toward the closed door along the hallway to show them where Daud’s room was, however and they then made their way back downstairs.

Joplin joined Ann, Lib and Billie at the dining room table while Cholly joined Thomas out on the back service deck for a smoke. Cholly was worried about Joplin. Ever since he and Daud had properly met, Joplin had been approaching feverish levels of work – sleeping little and constantly making notes in his journal. He had built Megan’s clockwork hand in near record time, starting from a project that he had started months earlier but never seemed to find much motivation to work on. Joplin was always tinkering and building useful devices and there was no telling what the hand was originally meant for but once Joplin latched on to the idea of making it for Megan he had it finished and operational more quickly than Cholly could have imagined. His newest project for her was some sort of monocle that worked with a set of tiny lenses and cogs, and he was nearly finished with that as well. Cholly knew that Joplin had admired Captain Foster, as did many of the other ‘Rats but this seemed to be more than a gift from an admiring fan – this had something driven behind it, and the ease with which the hand had dovetailed in with Lurk’s abilities suggested that Joplin on some level had to have been aware this would happen.

More than once, Cholly had wondered if Joplin had inherited something more from his father than his looks and his technical capabilities – something darker. Joplin had been having increasingly disturbing dreams since meeting Daud the first time – Cholly heard Joplin thrashing and crying out often when he was doing his nightly walkthroughs checking on his ‘Rats. At first Cholly tried to joke it out of him, and Joplin was more than happy to joke back – making crude comments about wet dreams involving Cholly’s mother and the like but eventually Joplin didn’t bother to joke. He’d just clam up, staring intensely at Cholly through his thick lenses until the silence tipped into the uncomfortable and the subject was changed. Cholly was certain that this surge inside Joplin was tied in part to his desire to reach his mother, wherever she may be trapped inside her own mind out there in the 'Wilds and he sincerely hoped that Joplin would be able to keep his resolve to figure it out without resorting to turning to the Outsider. Cholly had nothing against anyone who did make that choice, but he was uncomfortable with the idea of losing Joplin to it particularly when he had been so outspoken about it before. It was something he wanted to discuss with Thomas, but now was not the right time. Thomas was not particularly talkative right now at any rate. After their tour of Daud’s ‘Lair’, Thomas hadn’t much else to say. He stood next to Cholly, his elbows bent on the railing looking out over the alleyway hocking and spitting occasionally. Cholly could sense a tenseness there under Thomas’s quiet calm, but as he had come to realize Thomas was the very picture of control under pressure. He was cool efficiency to Daud’s stormy disposition and Billie’s fiery temperament. He imagined that they worked well together. They finished up their smokes and headed back inside. All there was to do now was wait.


	77. The Longest Walk: Daud and Lily Head Back to Baleton

As Daud and Lily walked slowly back toward Baleton, a number of unpleasant things were going through Daud’s mind: an exploding bullet to the face, dismemberment by dull-toothed starving wolfhounds, a straight shot of river krust acid - no chaser, being set on fire and thrown into in a tank of whale oil – any of these things was preferable to the conversation with Lily that was now unavoidable. The energy that had powered each during the chase had subsided, leaving them spent after Daud’s assassination of H.H. The malignant corrupted part of the thing that was Rose was still trapped inside the Elder Woman’s apothecary, and Daud could feel that H.H. would not be coming back this time. There was little reason to rush. Daud, even at his peak would not be able to outrun what he now had to face along with Lily. He could sense that she was glaring at him - he could feel the waves of tangled thorny feelings and emotions hissing and spitting out at him from behind her eyes. He knew that at any minute she would begin to talk, and he had resigned himself to answering whatever she wanted to ask.

He realized now that he had been in denial over it, but there was no question now that they shared a bond now through this child – a strong one that while different, rivaled the strength of the bond that he and Lurk shared. Daud kept his thoughts shrouded out of general habit, but he could clearly hear Lily’s thoughts now, confused – angry, outraged. Those he could deal with, as he shared equally in them. There were deeper ones though, subtle undercurrents that danced just under her conscious thoughts that he would rather not have to consider and hoped that she would not grasp them out of the darkness in which they were barely hidden. He could feel that she hadn’t quite realized it but she saw him differently now, in ways that made him deeply uncomfortable, but not nearly as uncomfortable as he was with his own changed perceptions.

There had been something deeply primal that had rushed through the many twists and turns of Daud's mind and heart when the child responded to his near-touch. In a daze, his vision still clouded with the red tinge of his blood thirst he had reached for the swell of Lily’s belly – driven to do so by some impulse that he didn’t understand. He wanted to touch her at this point where this life was growing – drawn to that part of himself living in the body of another. For the first time in a long time he had felt fear icing around the edges of his heart as his hand drew closer and he had hesitated, frozen at the edge of something unfathomable. Even from that distance – his fingers mere inches yet somehow uncountable miles from Lily's belly he had felt the moment when this child - _his child_ safely curled within its mother had suddenly crossed over from something like a deep slumber into sharp consciousness. He had seen this child kick from the inside as it felt the first rush of emotion and conscious thought throughout its tiny curled body. He had felt it himself from within the child, and knew this child felt Daud’s own deepest private thoughts within itself as well. The child had drawn all that was Daud – all that he had ever been, into itself. The pull at the very roots of his being had been nearly unbearable, but at the same time strangely comforting. He had felt Lily in there with him, with their child – in some place that he couldn’t name. It was entirely alien to him, but also strangely familiar in ways that he didn’t understand. What if he had lowered his hand into a touch? Would it have tipped him into that chasm of unknown to be lost forever, or would he have found himself at last somewhere down deep at the bottom? 

This was something far beyond strong emotions and confused desires, and Daud knew Lily was experiencing this as well. This he could share with Lily – this metaphysical state he was feeling, but he could feel her other thoughts tangled along with these. He saw the taste and smell of himself reflected in her mind, the weight of his body on hers – all wrapped up in equal parts loathing, anger, affection and conflicted raw desire. These were things that Daud did not want to see. All he could do was to turn his mind away from them, and hope that she could one day understand.

The Actor had thoroughly broken Daud’s mind long ago and severed his ability to process emotions like other people but had not been able to extinguish Daud’s desire and ability to study and understand those emotional interactions around him, even if he would never feel them himself. Daud understood these complicated snarls between people, and his isolation from emotional experience had allowed him over the years to manipulate people at will. He had no intention of manipulating Lily in any way – he cared for her insofar as he was able, but he would certainly sidestep the more complicated of her thoughts.

He was not always able to easily sidestep though. He had been tangled up in these emotional (and sometimes sexual) situations a number of times before, for better or for worse over the years. These snarls were generally easy enough for Daud to avoid, but sometimes he just wasn’t quick or clever enough to slip those traps. Some were not as bad – the closest he would ever come to being able to love someone in that way was Lurk, and he was deeply grateful for what he was able to feel for her even in the moments where those feelings caused trouble.

Others were not so good. He had been expelled from the Academy after falling into such a trap, and against his mother’s best advice to avoid doing so – had in the process ultimately made enemies of the Brigmore Witches for as long as they all lived and remembered each other. He was certain that Sokolov had failed to mention the _specific_ particulars of Daud’s rustication from the Academy with Billie during the time those two shared during the coup in 1852. He surely would have heard about these particulars from Billie by now if he had. If she asked, he’d tell her – and as with every other situation, would not lie. Daud had never found reason to lie to anyone when asked a direct question. Sometimes the truth cut deeper than his blade ever could, and he used this to his advantage. Often these deep wounds were necessary, but sometimes they were just another way to spite or taunt his marks. In Billie’s case, he would not insult her by sparing her the truth of the matter should she ask. As painful as it potentially would be, he would not lie to Lily either.

Daud had allowed his mind to continue to wander far down a path leading back decades, and when Lily spoke he was so lost in his thoughts that the sound of her voice surprised him. He turned, having missed her question and she asked him again if he knew her father. So, she knew. It was not the question he was anticipating, but the distraction it would provide was a relief.

“I did. I knew him for a long time, before he took the name Teague Martin.”

Lily looked puzzled, but Daud continued.

“You want to know what he was like. If he was a good man. I won’t lie to you, Lily. Martin was one of smartest men I met in my time, and he was the best navigator and strategist anyone could ask for but he was not a good man.”

“Was it because he was a coward?” Lily asked sharply.

Daud turned and looked at her, truly surprised by what she had asked. “Martin was many things, but he was not a coward. Who told you that?”

“H.H. told me that he turncoated on his own people and got himself caught and cornered there at the … end and killed himself rather than face a fight. Sounds like a coward to me, and an asshole on top of that. He was an Overseer. An _Overseer_. What kind of Overseer _does_ that?” Lily was angry now, and any fear or awe she may have been showing from earlier had evaporated from her face. Daud could see it clearly now – she had her father’s eyes: slightly hooded, flashing in the same way Martin’s had during their many disagreements over the years. A slight cruel twist to her mouth like his when angry. With her hair shorn down, her ears stuck out in the very same way his had as well. He wasn’t sure how he hadn’t noticed before. He had seen something in her early on, and he knew now that Martin was just one of those things that had been hiding inside her eyes.

Daud stopped and turned to her, his jaw clenching. “I wasn’t there, so I don’t know how he died but I can tell you this: Teague Martin was no coward. It would have been Corvo Attano who cornered him. I doubt you know this, but Corvo had a mark just like mine. He was not above using it in the same way I did back in those days, either. I can think of at least ten different ways Corvo could have killed Martin without touching him and given some time I could think of at least twenty more. This mark is something to be afraid of Lily, but Corvo could have swarmed Martin with Void rats and Martin would have laughed at him even as the rats picked him to his bones. If Martin killed himself when cornered by Corvo Attano, it would have been for one reason and one reason only: Martin knew he was going to die and would not have allowed Corvo the option, or the pleasure, of killing him.” Daud tried but was unable to stop the thought that sent him back in his memories – back to where he lay bleeding and exhausted at Corvo’s feet, the fight in him gone. He had asked for his life and then _offered_ Corvo the opportunity to strike him down – allowing Corvo both the option _and_ the pleasure of taking Daud’s life. What did this make him? It was easy enough to kick that unanswered question back to the dark hidden places in his mind, and so he did.

Lily didn’t say anything for a little while, but then continued to press on. “Fair enough. What about what happened with my mother? Do you know anything about that? I saw you in that alleyway, and I know it wasn’t a dream. Was that man up on the roof Teague Martin?”

Daud knew he would have to be careful with this one. He had a pretty good idea what happened but didn’t want to speculate too much with Lily. He was glad she didn’t ask about what she saw there at the _end_ of the alley but knew she would get to that eventually. “Yes, it was Martin. Lily, there are some things I need to share with you before we talk about this. When we get back, I will give you everything I have that I know about your mother and Martin. There is also some information about your grandmother on your mother’s side as well. I only recently found out and you were gone when I did. I will warn you – you need to be prepared to accept what you will find out. I know you are going to ask me if Martin loved your mother, and the answer is ‘I don’t know’. The only people who can answer that are your mother and Martin. I saw your mother in that alleyway, Lily. You know that it was not a dream. I suspect that you will be able to speak with her now, should you choose.”

Lily narrowed her eyes, and started digging deeper – determined to unearth some truth or falsehoods behind H.H.’s gently spiteful words. “Was he her customer, perhaps? I’m sure an Overseer like Martin would have been quite at home at the Golden Cat.”

Daud again stopped and turned to her struggling with what to say without saying too much too soon. “I assure you that wasn’t the case with them. I don’t think your mother ever stepped foot in The Golden Cat, much less worked there. Trust me, it will be more clear once we get back.”

Lily was genuinely confused but after a short silence decided to move on to another subject. “When was the last time you killed somebody before H.H.?” This question was not unexpected but the straightforward way it was asked threw Daud off somewhat. She had asked it like a challenge or a dare, rather than with awe or fear. She really was her father’s child, that was for sure. Daud took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. He hadn’t spoken to anyone about this outside of Billie and Thomas, and even after all these years it still seemed risky to speak about but he did anyway. “The Empress was the last person I killed. I haven’t killed anyone since then.”

Lily looked at him with a mean side-eye. “What? I just now – not more than a half hour ago, saw you kill Hilliard Humphreys. What are you getting at, old man?” Daud glared at her out of the corner of his eye. “I didn’t kill Hilliard Humphreys. He was already dead, Lily. Had been for some time. I think Rose killed him early on.” Lily’s eyes widened and before she could protest against what seemed ridiculous she knew that it was true. That H.H. had not been the man she once knew. There had been something off about him. _That smell_. Lily suddenly felt ill when she realized what it was she had been smelling coming off him - his guts rotting from the inside. “How?! How was he walking around like that? Talking?” Daud wasn’t sure what to say. How exactly did one explain something like that to someone who had never seen or heard of such a thing outside of scary stories told in the dark? He shook his head a little and told Lily they had much to discuss once they got back to Baleton.

He knew that one of the questions he had been anticipating was forthcoming, and within minutes she asked him the question that no one had dare ask in all the years since it happened. "Do you regret it? Killing the Empress?"

Daud had asked himself this question many times over the years. He knew the answer now and were he to have a choice would have preferred not to but he pressed on with it. “Her specifically, no. Technically she was no different than any other mark, but at the time I thought it was meant to be my greatest victory. I had had killed my way through hundreds of high-born and had finally killed my way to the top. I felt so powerful up to that point, and I felt that by killing the Empress, I was going to change the world like the Outsider had said I would do all those years ago when he gifted me the mark. As soon as my blade entered her and broke apart her insides, it broke something inside of me as well. I realized too late that she was different, not just because of who she was but because of what killing her did to me as well.”

”All at once, I understood how wrong I was and had been for a long time. The entire weight of every life I had taken fell on me at once and I looked around and saw, really _saw_ for the first time what Dunwall had become. It was a city rotting from the inside - corruption, sickness, greed and twisted black magic staining every inch of it. I helped it become that way, and with the Empress dead the city would fall into the very hands of those who would take it even further down.”

”The Outsider took me into the Void as the Empress was dying. As I made my way through to where the Outsider was waiting for me, I saw my life stretching back to the point where I made the choices that led me to where I ended up. I saw myself as a young man - not much older than you are now - recently expelled from the Academy… yes, I attended the Academy for a short time. I realized there in the Void that I had been meant to take a very different path, one where I could have been far more powerful, more influential and yes – what I discovered would have changed the world in far different ways than I had up to that point. Only a few people know exactly why I was expelled, and I’ve never spoken to anyone about it since – until now, anyway.”

**Daud's Rustication from the Academy of Natural Philosophy, or "How I Got Thrown Out On My Ass by Anton Sokolov"**

I wasn’t there at the Academy long, but I was there long enough to discover something extraordinary in my studies and experiments. I studied experimental botany – plants, as my mother had when I was a child. At the Academy, I had found a way to isolate specific traits in plants and splice them into different species to enhance those traits. One of the traits I isolated was bioluminescence – you know, the glowing that some plants do. I had found a way to enhance that trait to a point where it became not just a source of light but a source of energy, _pure power._

At first, I was only able to light small-filament bulbs with the extracts I made in my experiments, but eventually I could light large lamps, and within a short time had begun to power all my lab equipment with it. Had I continued with my studies, I know that what I found could have replaced whale oil. Image it - harvesting _power_ from fast-growing plants - even common ditch-weeds like Oxrush would have been able to support it. As long as plants would grow, so then could this incredibly powerful source of energy, one that was stable and burned with cold instead of heat. No more explosions or burns. Whaling would have become a thing of the past out of choice rather than necessity.

That all ended when I got mixed up with a group of high-born Void-obsessed young women who secretly fancied themselves witches. They were a loosely connected group at that time, daughters of various businessmen, barristers and aristocrats, not quite a coven yet. I had somehow gotten the attention of one of them when I was roaming around Dunwall in the Distillery District late one night with Martin. He and I had been looking for the Outsider and … what? Yes, _that_ Martin. He was determined to find the Outsider, maybe even more so than I was at the time. We had been poking around the ruins under the old Abbey looking for Void artifacts but were finding nothing, so we decided to dust off, take a break and head to a pub - the Duke and Dancer, as I recall, to get drunk. 

Martin noticed the women first. They were dressed smartly, and very similarly except for one. She was very young, and she wore a bright scarlet jacket instead of the blue ones that her friends were wearing. We could tell she was watching us, and we laughed as the girls pointed, giggled and whispered. The red jacket girl approached us, and as hard as Martin tried to talk to her she seemed to only be interested in talking to me. I wasn’t interested in anything she had to say until she began talking about a secret greenhouse she kept. We started talking about plants, and before long I found myself intrigued by this girl. No, not like that Lily. I’m not... well, we can talk about that later. She and I talked into the night comparing notes while Martin got drunk and attempted to flirt with her friends.

Within weeks, I was spending most nights when I wasn’t working in my lab with this group of women, and before long this girl and I were spending a lot of time alone together. She was very smart and far beyond her years in her depth of knowledge when it came to botany, or any of the life sciences for that matter. She had many questions about the Academy, and her curiosity about it began to eat at her. No one was allowed in the Academy except students or staff, but she was determined. She tried every trick she could to persuade me to let her in to see my experiments. Eventually, she talked me into it with the understanding that she was to let no one know, not even her friends.

It was cold that first night I snuck her in, colder than usual and the sky was clear. I had already spent much time at the Academy exploring ways to get around, particularly ways to get into Sokolov’s office to dig through his stuff to see what I could find out about the Outsider for myself and for Martin. I snuck her in and showed her around – everything from the labs to the library to Sokolov’s office. We made our way quietly up to my lab and after lighting a single small lamp, I took her around the various work stations I had set up and explained what I was doing and my findings. She was fascinated, and we spent more than few nights after that whispering over my experiments as she eagerly assisted me in some of them. I thought I had found a partner in this – someone I could trust and work well with. I could not have been more wrong.

One night, I snuck her into the Academy like I usually did but I could tell that something was off. She was hesitant, constantly looking behind us, and seemed to be lagging where before she was always in a hurry to get up into the lab. We made our way up and I lit a few lamps, took off my jacket and the next thing I knew I woke with my eyes nearly gummed shut with blood, and Anton Sokolov standing over me kicking me in the side with one of his damned pointy boots.

Sokolov was incensed, furious and shouting. I jumped up at once, only to see that my entire lab had been dismantled and nearly everything was gone. All of my books and notes, my extracts, all the glassware, my equipment – all of it was gone. What hadn’t been taken had been smashed, destroyed. As it turned out, my things weren’t the only items gone missing. That girl had knocked me out, and she and her friends had looted as many things as they could collectively carry – including a few irreplaceable arcane items from Sokolov’s office.

Sokolov threw me out of the Academy that very night – literally dragged me by the scruff of my shirt and threw me out down the front entrance steps where I landed square on my ass in the freezing street in the dead of night. I had nothing left to take with me, so all he had to throw at me was my jacket. I sat there on my ass for a little while shivering and trying to figure out how this could have happened. I stood and started walking blindly, in shock and still bleeding from where that bitch had knocked me over the head. I don’t remember how, but that night I ended up in the Void with a clear head and that is when the Outsider marked me. He told me things that made me feel powerful - told me that I would change the world and then gave me the power to take back what I needed in order to do so. _Take back what is yours_ he told me, and for a long while I looked for these girls, but they had taken all they had stolen and gone deep under cover. 

I had no idea where to start looking for this girl and her friends. The Estate District looks out for their own, and there was nowhere there to ask around and certainly not anyone who would tell me anything. All I had was her name – Breanna Ashworth. What? You’ve heard of her then? Yes, the very same one. By the time I found them, they had used the very knowledge I had discovered along with some of Sokolov’s artifacts to power themselves into the Witches they so had wanted to be. Even that early on they were powerful, and they were well on the way to becoming even more so. 

I finally found the Witches holed up in one of the abandoned aqueducts near the ruins of the old Brigmore place. I had planned to knock them out one by one and take back as many of my things as I could carry but I did not. Instead, I used my powers to kill as many of them as I could. They were my first kills with this new power I had. I was drunk with these powers, and my blood had never felt more pure after that first kill – more alive and each kill enhanced this sensation further. I could not stop. With each of their lives that I took, I could feel some small part of their hybrid power absorbing into myself, and it nuanced my powers in ways that benefited me greatly later on.

I was not able to kill Breanna, however. She had somehow _internalized_ this power I had discovered and was able to dodge or block every one of my attacks, as if she were a step ahead of me in my own thoughts. I landed exactly one blow – I closed my mind to her as best as I was able at the time and managed to get in close to her. It took her by surprise when I punched her full on in the face. She didn’t even stumble. She _laughed_ at me as slightly glowing fluid bubbled from her nose. She slipped away from me like an oily shadow into the darkness of the aqueduct, and I did not see her again until I went to the Brigmore place nearly twenty years later tracking down yet another, but far more dangerous Witch. 

I never did get my things from them, nor did I ever try again or even look back. Word about my mark got out quickly amongst the Witches and in turn their families. None of these high-born nobles were above meeting in some of the darkest seediest corners of Dunwall to discuss murders of convenience and throw increasing amounts of money at me to sweeten the deal. I started regularly killing for coin and used the skills I had perfected at the Academy to create elixirs to kill or incapacitate people in a variety of ways. I learned to incorporate the results of my findings into myself without harm, and with time became immune to poisons of any kind, and from then on, I was unstoppable. I used my savings to buy an old building not far from the Old Port District and began to form my Whalers. 

The Outsider stopped speaking directly to me. I could still draw on him in some way through the shrines I built or found, but he did not pull me into the Void to speak again until the day I killed the Empress. I was angry and thought that he had somehow tricked me – that he watched what I was becoming and did nothing, knew that I was going to use my powers to tear Dunwall apart from the inside and simply let me. I realize now that when he told me that I would change the world, he never mentioned exactly how I was going to do so. He simply left me to my own devices to change the world in the way that I saw fit – even if it was not the way that I was intended to do so. It says more about me that I made those choices than it does him for watching me make them. When I left Dunwall in 1837 I was tired of the life I had built, tired of killing and I let go of the anger I was holding. I swore I would never use those powers again and until … all this, I had not. In fact, I thought my powers had faded entirely. 

I regret the choices I made that ultimately led me to kill the Empress. I thought I had been powerful, but I was no more powerful than an Overseer’s best wolfhound. I may have been powerful enough to maim and murder at will, but I was simply doing the bidding of those ultimately more powerful than myself. I was a dog, a tool to be used and kept well-fed with money. I understand so much more now, so much I wish I could have understood back then.

I wish I could tell you that if I were to somehow go back to that time I would turn down the Outsider’s mark but even now knowing all that I know and looking back on all that I’ve done I don’t know that I would. I don’t know anymore if it is me, or what the mark has done to my mind but I know that I would not say no. And that is what I regret most, Lily.

**************

For a while, neither said anything and the only sounds were the wind whishing through the tall grass and the roar of the strid fading as they walked further away from it.

“Daud.”

“Yes?”

“Will it hurt?”

“Yes.”

“After this is over, can I stay with… stay at the house?”

“Yes. It isn’t just my house now. It’s your home too, Lily. I will take care of you and this child always. You will never have to worry about that.”

“Daud, about what happened with us…”

So the moment had come. Daud interrupted her. “Lily, look. I was going to bring this up later but I think now may be the best time. I have kept a lab in my store down in the basement for some years now. I made many different types of elixirs and I made one that can actually erase specific memories. No, hear me out Lily. It will not harm you or the child. I can give this to you, and you will have no memory of what happened between us. You can keep the memories you want, and the ones you wish to purge will …”

Lily stopped him, and laid a hand on his arm surprising him into silence. “I don’t want to forget any of it.”

Daud could not bring himself to read her thoughts, and kept his own locked tightly. He knew that she meant it – he saw her father’s steely determination set in her own eyes, and he nodded. There was nothing that either could think of to say next, so they walked on in silence. 

Lily was absently rubbing the mound of her belly as they walked. There was so much more she wanted to say, to ask but now didn’t quite seem like the right time nor could she quite put words to what it was she wanted to say to Daud. She had felt the child kick when he reached for her belly, and from that moment had felt something that she couldn’t describe, a depth of emotion that she had not been prepared for. It had overtaken her as Daud’s hand hovered over her belly and his mark began to burn brightly.

Along with this had been the strangest sensation of some kind of rippling or shivering from inside her chest, a feathery sort of pins and needles that sent chills all over her. She had evidently been sweating profusely, wet rivulets running down her chest and her shirt still stuck damply to her even now in spots. She could feel sweat rolling down her skin now, chilling her though she really shouldn’t be sweating. Wait. No… no it wasn’t sweat. She could definitely feel it more clearly now - it was coming from…

She looked over at Daud to make sure he wasn’t looking, fell back a step or two and discreetly peeled her baggy shirt away from her chest and looked down. She was astonished at what she saw. She supposed on some level she knew already what it had been but _seeing_ it was still a shock. She blushed deeply as her shirt suddenly became more wet, the large spots spreading and she was embarrassed at the inability to control the flow of milk coming from her body. The child was kicking a little more now and she felt heavy and unwieldy as she walked. The rush of energy that she had felt earlier was receding at a faster pace and her back was hurting more with each step.

As they walked, the pain in her back seemed to ebb and flow, sometimes tending toward sharp – other times dull. Eventually the ache made its way around to her front, low in her belly and she knew then that she would not be able to walk much further. They weren’t far from Baleton, so maybe Mr. Merrock, _Daud_ wouldn’t mind if she just rested for a moment. Yes, maybe if she sat down for just a moment… and before she could say his name to get his attention, her vision tunneled, faded and from far away Lily felt herself falling and falling…

Daud felt her fading and turned sharply, and caught Lily in his arms just before she hit the ground. For a moment he hesitated, and to his horror he felt a _push_ at the back of his brain and then relaxed when her heard the whisky and cigarette voice of the Elder Woman whispering from inside his head _its time Marked one – sooner than I thought, run – get that girl back to Baleton – I will give you a head start but I need to let this thing Rose go soon if this child is to survive – run now, hurry_ and Daud did.

He picked Lily up from her slump carefully, braced her in a strong one-armed grip against himself and then ran until he thought his heart would burst, blinking ahead when his legs wanted to give up _run dog_ he couldn’t stop now, would not stop _run dog_ he was burning from the inside out, this child _his child_ so close to him, pulling at him, pulling him away from the dark places inside of himself _run dog_ the voice of the Actor fading now, fading in this strange light the child was burning into him, fading until he heard it no more.

When Daud reached Baleton proper, he quickly scanned the area hoping that no one would see him tearing ass through town - particularly not doing so carrying a semi-conscious heavily pregnant woman - and then cut a hard left toward the quiet back streets, blinked rapidly through the alleyways from shadow to shadow making his way to his building and then finally they were home. He blinked them up to the back service balcony, and made his way inside with Lily.

**************

The thing that was Rose stood under the balcony shivering with anticipation as it watched Daud blink up and carry Lily inside. It smiled to itself, a hideous grimacing parody of human emotion stretching its face. It dimmed itself into its shadow form and slithered up the wall to the second floor balcony. The imprinting was imminent, and there was nothing nor no one that could stop it now.


	78. Its Hour Come At Last

Lily opened her eyes and looked around. She was standing on the roof of an abandoned building and the bitterly cold brackish wind whipped around her peppering her with rough bits of debris. The air was heavy with fog, but she could make out lights punching through the mist – boats and ships drifting slowly by on a river not far from the building. She could hear the ship bells ringing - the damp and cold distorting the sound into mournful warbling chimes. She could not pinpoint morning or evening in the thin gray light, and the streets were quiet as streets usually are in the earliest or latest hours of the day. Where was she? This definitely was not Baleton. 

She walked to the edge of the rooftop and peered over, seeing nothing familiar but when she walked to the other side and looked down over the alleyway and at the scattered broken bits of her mother’s worldly possessions down in the muck she knew she was on the roof of Teague Martin’s building. She eased back from the edge and stretched her hips and lower back pushing her hands into either side of her lower spine to deepen the stretch. So, this is Dunwall. She walked to the front of the building’s roof and looked as far as she could see but could see no further out than perhaps halfway across the roof of the building across the narrow cobbled street and looking off the back of the building she saw nothing more than the very top of what looked like a rickety tower barely peeking out from the layers of thick fog. She scuffed her feet, noting the gritting sound under her boots and stretched her hands out in front of herself feeling the pull through her shoulders and upper back. If this was a dream, it was the most real dream she had ever had. Every detail stood out with clarity – even down to the slightly chemical boggish smell coming off the river. In a dream state, taking leaps from buildings to escape danger made perfect sense but here she knew without a doubt that it was not an option in this place. There was a service entry on the roof, and as much as she would have liked to avoid having to make her way down through a dark abandoned building she hoped that it was unlocked. 

To her surprise, it was not only unlocked but unlatched and only loosely closed. Any lock that had once been there was long since busted out – shot through, from the looks of it. She crept in, trying to keep quiet. Growing up, Dunwall had been a mysterious blood-soaked place in her mind – the streets crawling with rats and piled with corpses, Overseers hunting black magic witches and assassins that were hiding around every corner and up on every rooftop, gangs killing civilians, masked killers murdering entire gangs, Overseers and guards alike – all in all not a great place to be in, and particularly not lurking around in an old abandoned building in what looked to be a fairly seedy part of Dunwall. She stepped in carefully, gagging on the thick rank smell of mold and rotting wood. She was terrified that at any moment her boot would sink through a floorboard, freeing a swarm of starving plague rats that had been waiting there for years for their next meal. She listened carefully between each step, trying to hear between the creaks and groans of the walls and floors and trying not to jump at each tumble of debris that her footfalls loosened within the walls. 

As she crept deeper into the gloom of the half-light, she found herself getting increasingly jumpy. Lily did not believe in ghosts, but by no means did that mean she was not afraid of them. She slowed her breathing, dropping easily into her ‘breaking and entering’ mode as her footfalls became lighter and her breathing more silent. Through the creaks and groans from the bones of the old building she thought that she could hear whispering. Throughout her life, she would hear these odd whispers emerge from the quiet, weaving some random sound or other into some semblance of words just out of her brain’s grasp to make sense of. She knew that they were not actual whispers, just a trick her ears played on her, but this was different. This time there was a cadence to the lightly hissed sibilants, something seeming to beckon her deeper inside. It wasn’t a voice exactly, but it was definitely _something_ speaking. She ignored the hairs standing on the back of her neck as she tried not to imagine undead black-eyed weepers exploding from the dark vomiting up their bloody infested insides, insane witches coalescing from the black shadows oozing around the cracks in the floor, murderous h’aints hell bent on hooking her into the Void, the ghost of her father. She shuddered, shaking off the terror crawling across her nerve points. She was a ‘Rat for fuckssake, not some scared little kid. She steeled her jaw and clenched her fists as she descended the stair to the second floor and when she reached the landing, the whispering sound seemed to become more urgent. 

She hooked around the bannister on the landing and made her way, head tilted toward the whisper following it to the only door in the second-floor hallway. It was dark here but didn’t look as unkept as the top floor or rooftop. She had known enough of sleeping rough to know that someone was using this particular apartment as a squat, and it wasn’t a h’aint or a witch or a weeper for that matter. It didn’t have the care of a lived-in place, but it did give off just enough of an ‘occupied’ warning that set off her self-preserving ‘Rat senses. She would have continued down to the bottom floor, but the whispering was more intent now, almost-words behind the door. She took a measured breath and reached out with a steady hand to gently turn the knob and give the old door a good push. 

The knob turned easily, and the door swung open without a sound. She nodded to herself, noting the oiled hinges. When she stepped inside, she was nearly brought to her knees by the smell of her mother. It seemed to be soaked into every corner of the place – not overwhelming, but present nonetheless. Her perfume – sandalwood and rose, and the fug of cigarettes and other smells that brought a blush to her cheeks – sex and sweat a hot wet scent even in the chill of the still air. At times it seemed strong as she walked through the dark apartment and other times far away, so distant as to leave barely a hint over the smell of dust and dry wood. She could make out most of the apartment around her in the dim light coming through the kitchen window. There was nothing remarkable about it. The furniture was mostly broken and bits of stuffing from the remains of an old beat up chair were wadded into corners – abandoned nests of long gone rats. 

The whispering was all around her now, and she could not pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. She made her way to the back of the apartment, through another door that led into the bedroom. The bed was a collection of twisted blankets and sheets streaked with mold, the mattress so black in places that she couldn’t tell if she was seeing the surface or the innards of it. She frowned with distaste as she looked around. Someone still slept here, slept in that mess. There were items of clothing on the floor, wrinkled piles that had no dust around them and when she peeked into the washroom there was a ratty towel hanging from the stump of one remaining peg of a towel rack. The smell was heavy in here – fetid and damply human. She could faintly smell strawberries and rose though – perhaps from the discarded bottles of hair soap that lay on their sides crusted to the nasty floor. 

From somewhere behind her, she heard a woman’s husky laugh, a man growling in passion. She whipped around to look into the bedroom, convinced she would see someone there – two people tangled together into one but there was no one there. She could hear them though, this man and this woman… _her mother_ talking, loving. She felt sick thinking about her this way, trying to not to picture her with Martin – _Overseer_ Martin. The sounds crested and faded like a warped audiograph, and the whispering was surrounding it. 

Lily put her hands over her ears and screwed shut her eyes, willing the sounds to go away but when she brought her hands down they were still all around her. She walked out of the bedroom quickly, and as she was making her way back around to the apartment door her toes met something mid-step on the floor and her head was suddenly filled with the clear voice of someone – some man, or boy maybe whose voice she knew she had heard before, familiar yet entirely foreign to her. Before she could make sense of the words, the object skittered away off the tip of her boot and she followed it to where she had kicked it. She bent and looked at the object, hesitating. She had seen something like this down under the strid, but unlike that time she felt no tinge of fear when she considered reaching for it. It was a bone charm - part of one. The wires holding it together had been bent and frayed, and what had probably been three prongs held together with wire was now just one – and a splintered one at that. She reached for it and when she took it in her hand, the voice filled her head once again – clear, soothing in a strange way. _Come outside, Lily_. She nearly dropped it when she heard her name but something deep inside of her was not surprised that he knew her name. Not surprised at all, in fact. 

Lily turned and looked around at the apartment once more, breathing in deeply as much of her mother as she could catch in the air and then made her way quickly out and down another flight of stairs to the parlor. The front door leading into the street swung open silently and she stepped out into the street looking in wonder around her at Dunwall. _Quickly, come into the alley_. She hesitated, afraid at first but closed the door quietly behind her and walked around the corner to the alley and stopped short. Standing in the alley was an Overseer looking toward the back of the alley – no, not quite an Overseer. She hadn’t seen one like this before – perhaps this is what they looked like now? The Overseer – or whatever he was, heard her and turned to face her. _Shit!_ He was tall, and wearing a mask but it was unlike anything she had ever seen. It was not the full-face mask that she had seen in posters and in the broadsheets. It was some sort of raw metal - dark and roughly worked to resemble a skull – and the bottom half of the mask was a red drape of sorts that covered down past the chin. The mask was engraved with a symbol of some kind, but the angle of weak sunlight was just such that she couldn’t quite make out what it was. He stood clenching and unclenching his fists, and to her horror began to take long fast strides directly for her. What the fuck was she going to do? She looked around wildly, unsure of which direction to run and just as she tensed to turn and take flight the air thickened around her as time slowed and ground to a halt. That air tinged a pulsing purple-blue from the back of the alley silhouetting the Overseer(?) who had taken chase. From behind him, a figure appeared and approached her, somehow walking _through_ the strange Overseer. 

He stopped and stood before her, tall and lanky - dressed in black – his nails long and cracked, and his thin fingers adorned with thick silver rings. His skin was pale and dry – stretched thinly across his caved-in cheeks and powdered off here and there in the breeze as if he were blowing away by tiny increments. The most striking thing were his eyes – black and dull, thick and murky-looking sunken in the shadowed sockets. She had expected to see an ethereal beauty in the Outsider, but instead saw some Thing ancient and dry stretching through the skin of a much younger man well-worn and past his time. 

Lily was afraid, but firmly held her ground – subconsciously protecting her belly with one hand and holding the other to her side clenched tight into a fist as she straightened her spine and tipped up her chin in what she hoped was a show of angry defiance. “I take it I’m in the Void.” It was not a question. The Outsider looked at her and turned away from her his hands clasped behind his back as he aimlessly paced and spoke to her. 

“No, you are not in the Void.” Lily looked at him, narrowing her eyes and saying nothing. The Outsider didn’t elaborate, so Lily pressed on. 

“If this isn’t the Void, why am I here in Dunwall? Why did you bring me here?” 

At this, the Outsider smiled thinly. “Look around you. This is Dunwall but it is also not Dunwall. Deep under this very street are the remains of an old Chapel that belonged to the Abbey. Too many years ago to count or even matter, there was a ritual performed there which cracked the foundation of the chapel and sent shockwaves into the very skin of the Void itself.” 

The Outsider held out his hand palm up, and a strange coin materialized and spun lazily on a wobbly axis above his palm. “When the dust cleared, there were no human remains left larger than the size of a coin.” He flipped the coin to Lily, who caught it and turned it over in her fingers studying the strange symbol engraved into it before slipping the coin into her pocket. That symbol. She looked at the frozen form of the not-Overseer and saw that the symbol roughly carved into his mask was the same. 

“The High Overseer at the time ordered the site to be filled in, but more pressing matters quickly came upon the Abbey, and the work stopped. Not too many years ago, a madwoman lived there for a short time – a madwoman bearing my mark.” 

Lily interrupted him. “Wait. Are you telling me you _marked_ a crazy person? Why would you _do_ that?” The Outsider frowned slightly and continued. “She wasn’t always that way, Lily. Her mind escaped her years after that, and she became known as Granny Rags. She collected things she found under the passages of the street. It was at this place that she found a book – a book that somehow had escaped the damage of everything around it. Poor Granny Rags was blind by that time, so never knew what it was that was contained in this book. Night after night as she warmed herself by her meagre trash fire down in the ruins, she would open the book and bring it to her face inhaling the scent of the ancient pages in hopes to breathe in what her eyes could no longer capture. One night, Granny Rags left this place for another and though she had taken great care with the book – even sleeping with it under her head, the book had disappeared.” 

“It was Anton Sokolov who found it, and who used it time and again to perform the ritual in the rubble of the old Chapel – his methods becoming increasingly more disgusting and revolting. He had the key to everything he wanted there in his hands, but never bothered to figure out how to use the lock.” 

Lily was deeply interested despite her impatience and anger and nodded for him to continue. 

“It was Daud who stole this book from Anton Sokolov, and gave it to your father. For days Teague Martin prepared himself for the ritual he found in the pages of this ancient book and with your mother at his side pushed into that long-weakened spot of the Void and cracked opened a door to something… unspeakable, and time broke all around them as you took root in your mother’s belly.” 

Lily was hovering on the edge of afraid but being heavily pregnant made her far more likely to tip toward anger than fright. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, trying to ease the considerable pressure on her hips and nodded impatiently for him to go on. 

The Outsider gestured and swept his hand out in a half-turn toward the back of the alley. “This alley is closest thing to a doorway that the Void has. Martin and your mother opened this door, and it was Daud who handed them the key. Had it hand-delivered in fact by non-other than Billie Lurk.” 

Lily interrupted the Outsider again, her patience wearing thinner by the minute. “Why are you telling me this? Nothing you are saying makes any difference to me. I’m tired and I don’t feel well. I don’t care about anything you are telling me. If you have something to say to me other than any of this, then do it so I can leave – or you can send me back, or whatever it is you do.” 

The Outsider’s face twitched and his eyes narrowed in their sunken sockets. “Very well, Lily. I need you to tell Daud about this door.” 

Lily’s eyebrows shot up at this. The very absurdity of the situation struck her in the most inopportune way that it could have: it bubbled up at first as outrage at being here in the first place only to be asked to run an errand that was entirely mundane. A mundane errand, at her expense - pulled into this place and tasked to her by the Outsider himself as if he were asking her to run a note to Worley’s while picking up some eggs or apples. 

The thoughts coalesced and reached the surface, and her face twitched as she pursed her lips. It was not something she could keep in her control, however and as hard she tried not to she found herself first sputtering, then giggling and then outright laughing – something near, but not quite hysteria. “You, the Outsider – a … _god_ brought me all the way here sick, tired and pregnant so I could run a goddamned _errand?!_ ” She had to bend a little to catch her breath, but continued to laugh. She stood and crossed her arms over her chest, and tried to regain her composure. “Why can’t you tell him yourself? Can’t you just call for him through his mark or something? I’m not some errand girl.” 

The Outsider looked at her, his face expressionless and his eyes flat and dead. “Lovely Lily. The very image of your mother but with the steel of your father’s spine. I can’t reach Daud from here, but I can reach _you_.” 

Lily found herself confused by this. “How? I don’t understand. I don’t have a mark – I’m not like him.” 

”No, you may not have my mark but you do have something else that belongs to me – something you aren’t meant to have.” 

Lily pulled the bit of broken bonecharm from her pocket and held it up. “What? This? I don’t want it. You can have it back.” and held it out to him. 

The Outsider’s face shifted for just a moment, barely a ripple as his skin adjusted itself over his skull. “Not that, Lily. Something else.” He walked up to her, and stretched out his hand toward her face and Lily felt herself frozen in place unable to move as his cold dry fingers brushed her cheek. The pain was immediate, immense. She felt something pulling through her – stripping through her like hot wires dragging something along with it, something burning and sharp like a ball of fiery thorns. She could feel it peeling away from somewhere inside her skull as The Outsider drew it out of her. She shuddered, and her vision darkened as her eyes rolled up and back. He shifted his fingers slightly and she felt the fiery threads begin to pull through her from low in her midsection. Lily’s mind spun incoherently _my baby! he’s pulling it out of me!_ The child’s pain rose through her and mixed with her own as The Outsider continued, and she could dimly feel the child kicking and bucking wildly inside of her. “Stop, don’t… don’t hurt it … stop… you’re killing it…” Lily could only croak out the words, her lips going numb and her tongue heavy in her mouth. She was being held up now only by The Outsider’s power. She couldn’t feel her legs anymore and her arms dangled uselessly at her sides. She struggled to roll her eyes back into place. If she could meet his eyes, maybe she could somehow appeal to him. With the last bit of strength she had left, she was able to shift her eyes to meet his and her mind turned itself inside out. All she knew or could see or sense were infinite blooms of black light and from off somewhere in the distance the sound of her own hoarse screaming. 


	79. Labor Pains

Interlude 1: Rose

The thing that was Rose froze suddenly and clutched the railing of the balcony. Seething anger twisted its shadow form from the inside, ripping its skin open here and there as it stretched and contracted, exposing unspeakable swaths of the barely contained form inside of it. It hissed and spat half-words through its warped and twisted tooth-lined hole of a mouth, jumbled bits of curses culled from generations of hate buried in the memories that it had consumed. It churred and clicked to itself, calculating any possibility of success after this unexpected turn and found none. Rose grew still, calmed and allowed the limited material of its brain to coalesce and busily churn and contract, forcing itself to think as a human would and it fully comprehended the notion of trickery and of traps in that moment. It had come very near to being trapped. Had Rose entered the meat at the base of the child’s brain as planned at the moment the Void powers had been stripped, it would have been trapped inside of the now-useless larval human, with no conduit for power and no way out. The Outsider had been weakened considerably by now but that did not stop him from laying this trap right under Rose’s nose so to speak. It did, however affect his timing. Had it been any later… Rose considered its next move as wisps of green and black aether lifted from its skin and peeled away to fade in the cold air. Its experiment was over. All that it had planned and accomplished and achieved was lost. It was time to reconfigure. It quietly chirped and clicked to itself, its features working with precise reptilian jerks as its eyes moved freely around in the sockets. It twisted its thoughts inward, pushing through the pulp of its brain. It dug deeper, until it found a useful path buried deep and hidden inside its collected memories. Dunwall. A building. An alleyway. A doorway. _The_ doorway, in fact. Yes. It quickly calculated a new plan based on adjusted parameters – a plan that did not include procreation, a plan that would work with its collective abilities and skills perfectly. It had learned from Delilah’s memories that repeating a failed plan regardless of parameter changes was not an option.

It reached further until it could see what was happening from some pocket of aether inside itself that until now had remained hidden, or perhaps hadn’t been hidden at all. Rose had not given Rose Everleigh much thought outside of what it could harvest from what was left of her to use for its own purposes. It had barely registered the moment that Rose Everleigh peeled away from it while the thing was trapped in the Elder Woman’s lab. For a moment Rose Everleigh had been free, and the thing that was Rose had not registered what it saw through Everleigh’s eyes during that moment. It had not been surprised that at the first chance of freedom Rose Everleigh had gone to her offspring. It had learned over its time navigating this world that there existed curious bonds between humans, and in particular indelible bonds between humans and their offspring. It was not at all concerned about Rose getting away, nor was it particularly interested in what it had seen in the alleyway. It was interested now, however. Very interested. 

When the Elder Woman had released her hold on the thing Rose, what was left of Rose Everleigh had snapped back into place inside the thing Rose as quickly as she had fled. The thing dug itself deeper into the meat of its own brain with a greater purpose now, sending its thready feelers for where Rose Everleigh cringed somewhere deep inside itself. It knew now that this relatively insignificant factor, this faint stain of a girl held on to useful thoughts and memories and hid them well. It intended to take them for itself, and within seconds it had cracked open the last secrets of Rose Everleigh. It knew all that it needed to know, and stretched its face into a smile as it considered all of the ways that it would use them. It released its grip on the railing and faded into its shadow form, slithering away on the drifts of wind, riding the dust in the air and water in the clouds as it made its way to Dunwall. It was time to begin again.

Interlude 2: The Elder Woman

The Elder Woman shifted slightly between dimensions and coalesced into her familiar form under Daud’s balcony and lit a cigarette, breathing the sweet smoke in deeply and savoring the sensation of the dark corruption that was Rose fading from the air of Baleton. She had watched as Rose made its way up the balcony and then stopped, twitching and writhing - more spider or perhaps reptile now than anything resembling a human, and she felt the very moment when Rose’s experiment failed. Though she was not able to fully penetrate the moment and see the exact parameters within Ctoggha’s realm, she knew that the Outsider had somehow brought this all to an abrupt end. She would not know until she laid her hands on Lily what had become of the child. She reached out with her mind toward the child but was no longer able to see it clearly – in fact, she couldn’t see it or sense it at all. It seemed to exist now as an _absence_ of matter rather than a collection of it, but still existed. To what extent and what form, she would find out soon enough. It was close to birthing time now, so she shifted her form up onto the balcony and quietly made her way inside the Marked One’s home.

**********

When Daud crossed the threshold and kicked the door shut behind him, the room exploded in varying degrees of chaos and confusion. At the moment his foot touched down onto his floor Lily shifted in his arms and was suddenly wide awake and screaming – a screeching live pylon in a swarm of eels, all elbows and bootheels landing sharp blows along what felt like every inch of his body. He held her up as gently as he could, struggling to bring her feet to the floor and tip her upright into balance in the midst of her wild punches.

Everyone approached at once, and Daud instinctively stepped deftly at an angle, arcing Lily around so that they were both facing Lib Fury who was moving in fast with one hand on her sleggja and the other clenched into a large hard fist.

“He’s killing my baby! He’s killing it no NO NO NO!!!” Lib looked at Lily, and at Daud and back at Lily confusion clouding her anger. Daud didn’t _look_ like he was killing anyone and Lily looked … drugged, or in shock. Lily drew a deep breath and screamed louder, wailing “The Outsider! He’s killing the baby he’s pulling it out of me stop it! STOP IT!”

The room went quiet and eyes cut across the room at each other, some in confusion – others in realization. Cholly watched, nearly frozen in place from the other side of the room near the front windows – ready to spring at a moment’s notice but rightfully terrified at the idea of doing so, and Joplin stood beside him, arms crossed over his thin chest watching with curiosity more than anything else. Thomas and Billie caught eyes, and spoke urgently within each other’s thoughts – Daud’s mind was closed to both them, neither could pick up anything but static coming from his thoughts. Lib had begun to stand down slowly, her hand no longer curled to the ready for the sleggja. Anne was the only one besides Joplin who seemed to be calm, increasingly so as the others wavered between fear and uncertainty. She had already begun digging through her old scuffed satchel, laying out various items on the great room table.

Daud could sense something drifting through the closed door in the entryway, could feel Her drawing closer and relaxed. She must have followed them back to Baleton. The Elder Woman knocked on the threshold of the entrance of the great room and walked into the room looking across it at the gathering, her blind eyes settling for a moment on Joplin. To his credit, the boy said not a word and hid his sudden fear well behind those thick lenses. Like Daud, this boy was able to see her true form. Extraordinary, but not entirely unexpected given his father’s experiments in Baleton. She smiled, allowing her shrunken eyes to continue past Joplin and across the others until they came to rest on Daud. “Hope it is ok that I let myself in, Marked One. I figured it was about the girl’s time and came by to check in. Looks like I came at a good time.” Lib and Anne exchanged astonished expressions. That was a load of pure horseshit – the Elder Woman didn’t simply ‘show up’ in Baleton. Neither could remember her ever coming to Baleton, in fact.

Daud struggled with the absurdity of these pleasantries in the midst of the circumstances and struggled to maintain some level of necessary decorum through Lily’s enraged grunts and howls. “Welcome to my home, ah… I’m not sure what to call you…” The Elder Woman smiled, somehow managing to make her shriveled black eyes seem warm and friendly and replied “Teresa. My name is Teresa.”

Meanwhile, Lily continued to howl and scream switching from beseeching pleas to feral swears and oaths that made even Lib wince and frown in disapproval. The Elder Woman stepped toward Lily and lay a hand on the girl’s forehead and as if a switch in her brain had been thrown, Lily quieted immediately and when Daud slowly released his arms from around her, Lily stood looking around wide-eyed at everyone there and then down at herself, cradling her taut belly with both hands. “There, now girl. Let’s get you cleaned up and ready. Anne, Lib – come with me. No, Marked One – for now you stay. I’m sure there is much that must be discussed out here.”

When the Elder Woman, Lib, Anne and Lily left the room to head to Lily’s bedroom Billie followed them in to gather up her things and help get Lily settled back in. Daud stood for a moment and then did something he rarely, if ever, needed to do – his head was swimming and he needed to catch his breath. He let his breath out slowly and rolled his spine down, bracing his hands on the tops of his thighs just above his knees. He was aware that Thomas was concerned, could feel his thoughts hesitantly probing his own. Daud wasn’t ready to talk yet. He kept his mind in a solid static state, focusing on the memories of the sounds of pylons, walls of light, arc mines.

He was overwhelmed but had not wanted Lily to see him this way, bent over panting like an old man. He could feel the moment that she had been taken into the Void – her body had gone from damp and heavy to nearly weightless as she and the child had been shifted away, leaving only their empty shells. He wondered how many times Lurk had seen him like that – a hollow man anchored by empty boots in this world and the whole of himself somewhere else.

He felt the moment that the bond with his child snapped, and he was not sure how to process the pain. He didn’t understand why it hurt, he just knew that it did. He had shared _something_ with Lily and with the child at the moment the child had quickened under his approaching hand back at the strid, some connection that he had never experienced but strangely found that he did not care to question, either. The child had run alongside him from within its mother, pulling him – leading him ever further away from the dark rot of his tangled memories. The child had cleared a path inside of Daud, a path leading him home – a path he had assumed long-gone after the Actor had relentlessly butchered and rearranged his mind.

Daud closed his eyes and reached out to his child but found nothing there. He knew there was no point in trying again. There was simply an absence in response to his call - a feeling he was all too familiar with. He had felt it with every Whaler with whom he had shared powers, and then lost. When he let Billie go after Hume’s failed stunt, he felt her drifting farther and farther away pulling some part of him with her like a harpooned whale trailing the line. He waited until she was safely away from Dunwall out on open water and then with a final gentle tug he snapped their bond. It had hurt him deeply, as it had with every Whaler he lost. Especially so with her, though. He hadn’t lost too many Whalers before Corvo carved his way through them, and he would never forget the carnage of that day – each Whaler that Corvo cut down had gouged something away from inside Daud as well. It was both a mental and a physical pain, as deeply wounding on the inside as Corvo’s blade and bullet to the shoulder had been to his body.

There at the end, instead of cutting him down Corvo had cut him loose and left him drifting – his many tethers snapped or greatly weakened, but one held fast. Out of those left who had shared his bond, it was only Thomas who remained by his side – ever steady, calm and dependable. The others had become wary and dependable only insofar as they were in Daud’s earshot. He realized only now that while Thomas had eagerly accepted Daud’s powers and gladly used them at every opportunity, it had been Thomas’s motivation that had set him apart from the others. How could he have forgotten that? It was only Thomas out of all the others left who had not _asked_ for the powers. He stood by Daud’s side not because he needed access to the powers, but simply because he wanted to.

Daud stood and shook out his arms, pacing and calming his breath. He had planned to shut down his thoughts to them, icing them over as he had when he had let Billie go back in ’37 but knew that would accomplish exactly nothing. No, Thomas was here, still here and as much as he would never have admitted it openly then or now – he needed him. Daud opened his thoughts up then and Thomas looked sharply up from the table where he stood bent over his stack of notes.

Thomas let Daud’s thoughts wash through him and struggled not to shudder at the waves of foreign emotions flowing freely. Something had happened out there in the ‘Wilds, something significant. Where Daud’s thoughts had before been cloaked shadows, they were now raw and open like exposed nerves. For the first time, Thomas could see clearly into Daud’s mind, and it made him far more uncomfortable than he would have imagined. He was not used to Daud _feeling_ so openly. There was a near-obscenity to it, a wrongness in light of everything Thomas had known about Daud but he recognized a time of need when he saw it, even if it came from someone he never could have imagined _needing_ anyone or anything.

Before Thomas could speak, Billie walked into the room and spoke quietly. “Daud, Lily needs you. There’s something you need to know.”

Thomas felt Daud’s mind abruptly clamp shut, and though disappointed was relieved at the same time. This would give him some time to prepare for a conversation that he was not sure that he was ready to have. He hoped that Billie would be there as well, as he had sensed that she was meant to be a part of it. Daud turned without a word and made his way to Lily’s room, shrugging off his old red jacket, peeling off his gloves and letting them fall to the floor. Billie picked up Daud’s jacket and gloves and took a seat at the table holding them in her lap, and when Thomas looked at her questioningly, she merely shrugged – evidently lost in her own thoughts.

***

Daud opened the door to Lily’s room unsure what to expect. Childbirth was entirely foreign to him – the very thought of it made him deeply uncomfortable, and losing the bond to his child had done nothing but add a layer of dread to what he was already afraid to walk into. To his surprise and relief, he found things calm and relatively normal – Lily was sitting up in bed with blankets pulled up over her. Lib was sitting on one side of the bed, and Anne on the other intermittently looking at her stopwatch and jotting down notes in an old battered ledger. The Elder Woman was standing at the foot of the bed, arranging towels and laying out packets of various herbs. They all looked up when Daud walked in, and though he had expected to be stared down like a specimen pinned to a board he was greeted with warmth. The Elder Woman walked over, put a hand on his shoulder and guided him in, speaking assurances into his mind. Anne and Lib stood and walked out, and Anne patted him on the back on the way out. Daud was grateful for the support, more so than he had realized. He was not accustomed to such kindness and hadn’t expected it given the circumstances.

Lily stretched and scratched her belly under the blankets and asked Daud to sit down beside the bed and motioned for the Elder Woman to stay as well. She told them what had happened - how she had felt herself falling; only to find herself on top of a building in Dunwall – Teague Martin’s building in fact. She described what she found in there, and left out nothing – the whispers, the smells, the dank rot of the place and how she heard the Outsider’s voice calling to her when she picked up a broken piece of bonecharm that had been on the floor in Martin’s rooms. Daud nodded at this bit – he didn’t know what the whispers had been about but he knew well what effect picking up a bonecharm could have, and no doubt a greater effect given where she had found it.

When Lily began to describe the encounter with the strange Overseer in the alleyway, Daud stopped her and asked her to recall as much detail as she could remember. This didn’t sound like any Overseer he had ever encountered anywhere in the Isles nor did he imagine that the uniforms in Dunwall would have changed so greatly, but it also sounded a little too elaborate to be the work of a fringe organization. He sent out a question in his mind _Eyeless?_ to the Elder Woman but she replied only with a slight frown and the mental equivalent of a shrug.

Lily continued, describing the experience with meeting the Outsider – from the moment he bent time to stop the charging Overseer to the moment he tasked her with sending Daud the message about the doorway to the Void in the alleyway. A doorway to the Void? Daud had assumed that she had been pulled into the Void, but it was clear now that it had been more of a displacement in this world than being summoned to his. He couldn’t imagine the Outsider stepping into this ordinary world in the way she described. He had expected to hear about the alleyway bending itself around them at an impossible angle, or the cobbled street crumbling into chunks with nothing but Void above and below, and the occasional leviathan of course. No, the Outsider had been able to manipulate things around him but in a very limited way – no more so than Daud himself could have done. In such a weakened state, how did he manifest the displacement? Was it some overpowered form of split transversal? Even in second-hand information the Outsider had yet again managed to generate more questions than answers. Lily grew quiet, gathering her thoughts for a moment and Daud looked down, trying to make sense of the message. He knew the Outsider had weakened – he was clearly deteriorating - but had not considered that he would weaken to the degree that he had. It wasn’t surprising to hear that Dead Man’s Alley was the entry point to the Void. As straightforward as the message was though, he had no intention of returning to Dunwall for any reason Outsider or no Outsider. If the message was about keeping the Eyeless away from the door, he certainly didn’t need to be in Dunwall to make that happen. There were more than enough members of his network to make those arrangements, and the Outsider surely knew this.

Daud put his thoughts aside for the moment, and asked Lily if she was comfortable continuing. Lily was – in fact she seemed almost dreamy, distracted as she described what the Outsider had done to her. Her description of the sensation of burning wires being pulled through her was no doubt the powers she wasn’t intended to have being stripped from her. But what of the child? Had the Outsider literally tried to rip the child from inside of her? He felt the Elder Woman’s voice whisper into his brain in reply _“he did not kill the child. The child lives still.”_ When Daud tried to press her to see if she could sense anything from the child, the Elder Woman’s mind evaded his question and closed gently to him. He did not like the implications of this, but was relieved that the child was alive. Lily had many questions about the Outsider, and Daud answered them without hesitation or evasion – both to Lily and from within his mind to the Elder Woman.

They spoke for a few moments about the books and files on Rose and Martin that Daud wanted to share with Lily, but before Daud could go into detail about how they were connected with what had happened in Baleton, Lily sat up straight, grimaced, and her body pulled hard into itself. The Elder Woman explained that perhaps it was time for Anne to return and Daud was more than willing to trade off his place with her. Though he was entirely ignorant to childbirth, he knew in some primitive way that this clench was connected to it and he was eager to make his way away from it and back out to the great room.

He patted Lily’s shoulder awkwardly in what he hoped was a comforting way and stood to made his way out, but before he got to the door Lily called to him and tossed something his way, “Mr. Merr… um Daud, wait! I forgot something – I think this is for you.” Daud plucked it from the air and studied it. It was a heavy rough-hewn coin, dark and silvery with a symbol on one side that struck him as familiar but he couldn’t quite place it. He didn’t recognize the craftsmanship or material either for that matter. Another mysterious gift from the Outsider. He dropped it in his pocket for later and made his way out of the room. He needed a cigarette. Maybe ten.

***

Daud stood on the roof looking out over Baleton and answered questions as they came to him. It had started as a briefing at Daud’s great room table not long after Daud left Lily’s room. Daud, Thomas and Billie reviewed and traded information they had gathered thus far and Thomas constructed the facts and speculation into a chart that would later be used to craft a set of precise and careful plans to research and observe the Eyeless in Dunwall and find out exactly what they wanted from Daud before making any further moves. The ‘Rats would be especially helpful in the beginning, as they would blend fairly well with the mudlarks that seemed to be everywhere in Dunwall but largely invisible to the population at large who chose not to see them.

At first Cholly and Joplin were engaged and interested in what would be their first mission as a team with the Whalers but the more the Whalers talked and speculated amongst themselves the more it became clear that Joplin and Cholly had some catching up to do on Dunwall history and in particular on the Outsider and those influenced by the power of the Void. Briefing became history lesson, and when the first of Lily’s cries began they all decided that perhaps the roof was a better place to be.

Up on the roof, Daud shared his stories with them – stories that some knew, some didn’t and a few that none of them did – what he remembered of his youth and what had been done to him by the Actor, his first years back in Dunwall and how he had partnered for a time with the man who later had been known as Overseer Teague Martin. He told them about his time at the Academy, and how his miscalculation in trusting Breanna Ashworth led to his expulsion and gave rise to the Brigmore Witches. He shared what little he now knew about the Eyeless and the Eight. He talked until he was hoarse, spilling his past before them – annotating as necessary _(yes, boys – that Overseer Martin – the Loyalist who infamously took himself out rather than die at the hands of a heretic – none other than Corvo Attano; that’s right Billie and she was telling the truth – I did fight her and I was not able to beat her even then. She already had a good deal of power before she met Delilah, thanks to me. And yes, Sokolov did in fact literally kick me out by the seat of my pants through the front door of the Academy. I’m not surprised he told you that. I’m going to bet he laughed, didn’t he; I’m not sure who the Actor was, what his real name was but he wanted something from me that I’m still not sure about and it probably has something to do with the Outsider in some way. I don’t care anymore, but if you really want to know who he was I can’t think of anyone else who would be better than finding that out than you, Thomas. Yes, I killed him. That’s all you need to know about that; The Eyeless and the Eight are not the same people but I don't know how they are connected yet; no, boys I didn’t hurt Emily more than I already had, didn’t lay a hand on her with any intention of harm – I took her to some handlers, and that was the last I saw of her; killing her was no different than killing anyone else – it just carried consequences that were far more complicated than any I had faced. That’s what made her different. All the others were just steps up toward that moment. I thought I had reached the top – taking down an Empress, but I was looking her in the eyes when I ran my blade through her and I saw the truth in her eyes. She was not afraid of me, not even as she bled out onto my blade – I wasn’t at the top. I had hit bottom. I murdered a woman in front of her daughter and her man, a woman who had done nothing more than try to save her doomed citizens in that plague-ridden shithole, and I did it for coin dangled at the end of an aristocrat’s crop. I tried to convince myself it was for the coin, but I was just the same trained attack mutt that the Actor had turned me into, just with richer handlers. Not even the Outsider’s mark could change that. No, the Actor didn’t make me into an assassin, nor did the Outsider. Those were my choices, and mine alone.)_

They went quiet for a while up on the rooftop. There didn’t seem to be much left to say after that and making plans on the heels of that conversation seemed out of place, especially so given the circumstances. There was time, and each of them in their own way and for their own reasons were grateful for the silence. It was Daud who finally broke the silence. “It’s time. Let’s go”.

***

Inside, the air seemed to have taken on a deep electric heaviness. Daud, Billie and Thomas sat at the table in the great room while Cholly and Joplin sat in chairs in front of the windows facing out over the town center. Lily’s cries had cycled from shrill screams to deep guttural growls. With each crescendo of pain, Daud’s jaw set a little tighter, his fists on the table drawing in harder. It was hard to watch him this way and Billie and Thomas knew better than to try to offer any words of comfort or encouragement. The closer together the cries got, the heavier the air seemed to get. It was faint at first, and Billie was the first to hear it – a small rattling here and there, intermittent but quickly gaining momentum. The dishes in the cabinets were rattling, and then the very windows in the panes began to rattle. Joplin stood and walked over to join them at the table. His face was pale, and he was clearly struggling to stay calm. Billie turned around and looked over at Cholly slouched forward in the chair, elbows propped on his knees as he stared out over Baleton. He didn’t seem to notice that the even the furniture had begun shuddering at this point, nor did he notice the shadows sent chasing themselves when the hanging light over the table began swaying gently to and fro with the rolling of the building. She turned back around and held on to the edge of the table and caught eyes with Daud. _It’s the Void, Billie he can’t sense it._ There was little to do but ride it out.

Thomas, Billie and Joplin looked around in wonder as the walls began to waver and breath, bulging and contracting. Though it was still in the daylight hours, the windows had gone dark and the thin crescent of a blue moon rippled and shimmered just under the surface of the liquid black sky on the other side of the rattling glass. It was a sky swimming with foreign stars in formations that none could comprehend – constellations that bent and twisted in on themselves, stars feeding on each other, devouring the light even as the blue of the strange moon glowed brighter. When the flayed side of giant bloody leviathan brushed against the glass, slightly surfacing through it Thomas had to put his arm around Joplin’s thin shoulders to keep him from screaming. The boy had gone stark white, his eyes bulging impossibly large behind his thick lenses. He had both hands over his mouth, and his breathing had gone shallow.

The building was shuddering and swaying, and the air had gone thick. The few knick-knacks that Daud had on shelves and end-tables fell all around them, and dishes burst out of the cabinets shattering across the counters and spraying splinters of glass and crockery across the floor. The linen curtains were billowing inward in a slow underwater motion, riding the currents of a wind that none of them could feel. The air closed around them, filling the space with a static silence that pushed into their eardrums with a painful pressure. Thomas still had his arm around Joplin’s shoulder, but his eyes were closed and Billie could see him moving slightly with the same invisible current that was pulling the curtains through the room. Daud was scowling down at the table, his hands knotted. Joplin had taken his hands down from his mouth and was staring straight ahead across the table into nothing. He was sitting impossibly still – straining against the pull around him.

Billie struggled to turn in the thick air to check on Cholly. He sat up, yawned and stretched and then slumped back over in the chair. When she managed to turn back around, the room began to vibrate as a low aural pulse flowed into the static silence filling it with an impossibly heavy sensation – something defying any known definition of sound. Before Billie could close her eye against the pressure pushing it deeper into her skull, she was nearly blinded by the sudden incandescent flash of lightning tearing through the darkness outside the windows, shredding through the boiling stars and shattering the blue crescent moon.

From somewhere far away she could hear something between a scream and a roar breaking through the thick air, each second of it surfacing closer rending the thick waves of the Void and thinning the deep aural hum first into a tinny whine and then into a sound no more significant than a weak ‘plup’ as the Void receded back into itself as if shrinking away from the force of the roaring scream.

The scream broke through fully and when it stopped, the room settled suddenly into quiet normalcy. Joplin stood unsteadily and walked back to the chair by the front window and sat heavily down. When Cholly asked him if he was feeling ok, Joplin just nodded and muttered some excuse about the grossness of childbirth. Cholly furrowed his brow and frowned, trying not to think about what he would be feeling when he heard Lottie screaming like Lily had been doing.

Billie turned when she heard Lily’s door open, and Lib and the Elder Woman walked out. Lib looked mildly ill as she ran a hand through her hair and then down across her mouth, and asked Billie if she wanted to go up to the roof for a smoke. She agreed and Thomas eagerly followed them out, with Joplin on his heels. Cholly stood, and excused himself as well. Billie held the door open for them and stayed back a moment, watching Daud’s back as he and the Elder Woman made their way back to Lily’s room. She wanted to send a thought out to him, something – anything but instead turned, walked out and closed the door quietly behind her.


	80. BirthDay

Daud had spent so much of his life steeped in death that there were few, if any questions that he would not have been an expert on in answering. He could tell you the going market value of a death using a complicated chart of parameters from social class to degree of personal vendetta. You could blindfold him and lead him to a kill site and he would be able to tell you from smell alone whether it was animal or human, whether the killing blow had been a braining one (slightly sweet with a side of copper and warm sea-water) or a body one (still-water funk of lung or sewer-trash of guts). He had seen (and dealt) nearly every death imaginable, and though would never admit it aloud now remembered the taste of it as well.

Each life taken had triggered in Daud a unique range of emotions from anger, to exhilaration to anxiety and nearly everything in between with the exception of two: nervousness and fear. Now, facing impending life rather than impending death, he found both in abundance in the short walk from his great room to Lily’s door. His palms itched, and the slick of sweat across them prevented him from getting a good scratch on them or even a solid satisfying rub along the rough weave of his breeches. His heart was pounding and he realized he kept forgetting to control his breathing. His mark was quiet, and though he dreaded the pain of it firing up inside of him he found himself desperately hoping for it - hoping that some some tiny spark of that connection with his child had survived. There were not more than ten or twelve steps between where he was and where he needed to be but each step seemed to stretch time into five more, ten more. The Elder Woman did not speak, merely held a light touch to his right elbow gently guiding him and holding him steady.

As if in a dream he watched his hand move in slow-motion to the doorknob, time so slow now that he found himself idly thinking about the very conversation he had with the merchant from whom he had bought the unusual green faceted knob. “Genuine Pandyssian green glass!” he had said, but Daud doubted that. Green quartz from the northwestern edge of Tyvia, maybe but definitely not Pandyssia. Way too rare. However, he had liked the look of it anyway, and… Daud shook his head, squeezing his eyes tight. His mind was determined to wander from whatever unknown had been born behind that door, and he could not allow that to happen.

He focused, took a deep breath, braced himself and turned the knob. The door swung open quietly, and the breath went out of him in sheer relief. Lily’s screams and roars had driven back the very Void itself and he had expected gore-spattered walls, shattered furniture, dark swaths of shadows smearing away the light but what he found was quiet and warmth with everything in its place. His knees went weak for a moment, his brain overwhelmed with the foreign sensations – behind the wisps of medicinal herb-steam the air was bloated with the heavy smell of blood, yet carried a tinge of a sort of adrenaline he had never experienced. The adrenal cast of fear and pain in blood was familiar to Daud, but this particular shade was somehow sharp in a cleansing rather than killing way. His eyes darted across the room quickly taking in and cataloging images: Anne’s hands dripping over a wide basin of bloody water as she prepared to dry them and make her way back out into the great room, wads of fluid-soaked towels on the floor, Lib’s old brown jacket hung over the slightly open door of the wardrobe. He scanned the room from the bookcase to the far side of the room, finding nothing alarming – nothing hiding, and he allowed his eyes to fix on Lily. She was propped up in bed, slumped a little lower than before and thankfully a large sheet hid her body from her neck down. She was pale, and her shorn cap of hair stuck to her scalp in small wet spikes. She was awake though, and to his surprise smiling tiredly. His face tugged itself in a few conflicting directions before landing on something like a smile. “Lily? Are you…”

Her smile widened the smallest bit and she shrugged the sheet off of her shoulders. “I’m ok, Daud. And so is she.” Daud was almost afraid to look down at the small bundle at her breast, afraid that she would somehow become angry if he looked at her so openly in such a vulnerable moment but she merely shifted so that the sheet fell a little further.

She was so natural in that moment, and Daud was struck by the shift in his mind in this context of nurturing her child – not being caught spying on a private moment, but being invited to share instead in an intimate one. His mind was tearing at itself, struggling to work this new context into that of his own which had never witnessed such a thing, much less witnessed as a part of it. He did not dare say so, but his mind was eased greatly that this tiny wrapped bundle appeared no less than human insofar as he had knowledge of infants.

He had seen babies in his time – not often, and certainly not in his line of work but his limited basis of comparison judged the size and shape of this tiny infant as being no different than any other he had seen. He was having difficulty reconciling the horrific creation of this child with the wash of emotions and thoughts that were going through his mind. He walked closer, cautiously – finding himself hoping that Lily would not flinch, or draw the child away from him. He looked down at Lily, and sat carefully on the edge of the bed nearly leaping out of his skin when she winced and shifted. She shifted herself around some more and pulled down the cloth from the child’s head and Daud could see small rusty-red damp whorls on the pale scalp. She shifted again, tilting the infant toward him and when he saw her tiny red face his heart slammed hard in his chest _steady now, marked one she can’t see it_ and though the Elder Woman’s words were comforting, he struggled to keep his composure.

Around the small scrunched eyes were streaks of black, small burns it looked like radiating out from both of them. The streaks shimmered and wavered, hissing quietly exposing raw red gouges under the shimmering black. He opened his mouth to say something _not now, marked one_ but instead held his arms out hesitantly. He hadn’t planned to, but something deep and instinctive had taken over and he wanted nothing more than to touch this small child. He fought back tears sending questions out in his mind _does it… hurt her? no, marked one_ and Lily held the small child out and laid her in his arms. Nearly all his life he had lived in the skin of a monster. He had seen and done things that were immeasurable in their depravity, and now the very hands that had taken hundreds of lives were cradling a life that he had helped create. He had not asked for this, never would have – but seeing this small person, this tiny vulnerable human he was grateful for a chance that had never occurred to him to want. He stood carefully, cradling the little one into his chest and walked over to a chair that had been pulled next to the bed and settled into it slowly.

He looked down at the infant, and reached into her mind hoping to find some spark of the child that had guided him out of maze of his mind, throwing light into the darkest corners of it – painfully exposing the full unraveled thread of his very _self_ , who he was and had come to be. This child had seen everything that made up the matter and mind of Daud – every pathetic, horrific and monstrous thing he had ever done and accepted him fully. What he saw now when he looked into this little one’s mind was not a spark but wide swaths of pastel impressions: warmth, hunger, comfort like any infant would have, he supposed but he saw this soft-focus set of primal needs stretching out into the rest of her days, never to develop beyond this infant haze of basic existence. His mark remained quiet, cold. With this mark he had taken down an entire city, had killed many, saved others and could bend the very laws of time and physics - he had the distilled power of a god in his blood, and could wield it at will with untold power and yet he could not save his own child. She lived, yes - but the person she was and would have been was lost to him forever. There was just serene emptiness now, the very essence of her torn out along with _shhhhh marked one shhhhh_...

He had come across people like this in his life and had tended to avoid them – the harmless emptiness inside of them frightened Daud. There was something about a mind being devoid of moral markers of development far more frightening on an instinctive level than the worst of the evil or the most benign of the good. There had been tales he had heard all over the Isles – all variations of the same: stories of witches or malevolent faeries stealing away infants and replacing them with empty shells of themselves. There had been a few times where he had been offered more coin that he could imagine to hunt down these 'monsters' and retrieve the 'real' child. He didn't understand then why the idea of it had disturbed him so, but he understood now. This is the kind of loss that breaks people, sends them into a delusional frenzy to escape facing the worst monster of all: accepting the truth. The child shifted and snuffled in his arms, her little sighs and sounds and the warm soft heft of her form breaking his heart into equal parts joy and sadness. _remember marked one, you see these things that others cannot see – things that will be understood naturally with time – let this time be what it is marked one and not what you are afraid it will be_ Daud held the child away from his chest, looking down into her face forcing himself to tamp down his fear and his slowly growing rage, focusing on this life in his hands even as the first tinges of murder-red danced at the perimeter of his vision. _careful marked one now is not the time_ He focused his breathing and carefully shifted his hands so that he could gently trace the features on the tiny face, brushing the tiny reddish curls beginning to dry and spring from her head, the small cups of her ears, the deep dimple under her lip, the soft give of her translucent lids _her eyes! no! ... shhhh marked one listen_. He was so lost in this moment that he had missed Lily’s question, and she asked again smiling “we need to name her, do you have something you’d like to call her? I want her to have some part of your real name – there must be some version of Daud that we can …”

He looked down at the child, considering Lily’s question and found himself interrupting her surprising even himself. “My name isn’t Daud, its…“ and in that moment he heard it so clearly, his mother’s voice in his head calling him – calling his name, his _real_ name. Lily began to speak, but he simply held up his hand while tilting his head. Her voice, his name – it was _right there_ , and then in an instant gone again. “I’m sorry but I need just a minute, Lily.”

He closed his eyes and pulled himself inward, pulling his child close to himself and let his mind reach toward the echoes of his mother’s voice. A broken piece of a loop of memory clicked into place and she was calling him from inside their small cabin, that’s right – yes, it was bright and warm that day – on the edge of too warm, and the air carried the scent of spices up from the docks – the hot wind blowing across the heavy loads on the ships, lifting the edges of the tarps to pepper and scent the wind with cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger. There was sharp grit in the wind blowing through the short scrubby trees that day, but he was outside and he was running and he was happy and he heard his mother’s voice and...

_the boy heard his mother calling to him, and turned and ran quickly to their cabin taking a wide jump up onto the porch bypassing the steps. Still running, he grasped the threshold of the doorway to the kitchen and slung himself around the corner in the way he loved to do – always moving, always running. He ran to her, this small boy – and wrapped his arms around her strong legs and rubbed his face into the side of her wrap knotted at her hips. Her skin was the color of sunburnt copper, with irregular patches of bright white running up her legs, across her arms and chest and up one side of her neck. ‘It’s the last of the Pandyssia in me’ she would say laughing and the boy would play along pointing one by one at her patches as she named them as islands along the Bitter Coast region of the western coast of Pandyssia. Each irregular patch of ghost-white skin held a story, a different story every time and the boy never tired of her tales. By her ankle was the island where large cats walked upright and talked like men, further up by her knee was where a famous terrible battle took place led by a giant made of brass with a living heart whose head reached the sky – at the curve of her waist was the place where an undead traitor had become a monster and hid from justice deep under a mountain living on bare rocks surrounded by a sea of liquid fire. She told him tales of pirates and thieves, of nobles and merchants, of lizard men, dwarves and elves of all colors – of doomed lovers and star-crossed soul-mates. She would hold his face in her hands and look at him, into him with her piercing eyes – a green so pale that they often tipped to silver in certain light and call him her Daud, stroking his coarse rusty curls and holding him close to her. He would cling to her fiercely, his thin arms tight around her neck and his small fingers playing in the thick choppy layers of her dark hair that always seemed to escape her headwrap to fall gently down around her ears and down her back – her hair not the shiny black of a birds wing, but a deep matte black shot through with threads and streaks of pure white. She told him tales of the beginnings and ends of worlds, the origins of all things man, myth and magic – every beginning except for his own. He rarely asked, and she never offered – but he grew up with the impression that his father must have been dangerous – a pirate or a bandit, someone his mother had taken great pains to escape and protect the boy from. He felt safe with her, and on this day after exploring the various islands of white along her legs and arms he stood with her for a while watching her carefully scrape and clean a variety of exotic flora - luminous russola, their mottled greenish glow still holding strong even as she carefully gutted the undersides of their wide pulpy caps, the violet coprinus – tall thin knobby stalks topped with brilliant blue glowing caps and his favorite, the bright blue-green glowing ampoule pods. Many times his mother had lightly popped his fingers with the handles of her wooden tools when they would creep in to touch – aching to touch the various glowing fluids, loving their heavy swamp-smell mixed with the thin high sting of the various strong spirits and solvents. She smelled of spices and spirits, of sweat and poison. The boy watched for a while longer until she began to work in earnest and tutted him out of the kitchen. The boy took off in a run as always, but this time when he hooked his hand around the threshold instead of slinging himself out into the hallway and then launching himself off of the porch he slowed, stopped and turned. She looked at him smiling, the sun glinting off the white in her hair and the Pandyssian-white shapes in her skin ‘my Daud’ she said. He smiled back, his heart full and then took off running again. He did not see the man waiting out there for him, a man who had been watching him for some time without the boy knowing. A man who followed the boy until he was out of his mother’s sight. A man who took the boy’s hand and walked him away. He never saw his mother again._

Daud took a deep breath, trying to control the unexpected surge of emotions from this long-forgotten memory. He had remembered only darkness and guile in his mother until now, and he had not remembered her especially fondly. All of the warmth, the comfort – it had been stolen from him, gouged out of his mind – she had loved him, and he had loved her and all his life after that day he had not remembered. Couldn’t bear to, even if he had been able. The remnants of these broken memories churning up inside of him cut deeply into his heart, and for the first time he felt the loss of his mother keenly - the sorrow and pain were nearly unbearable. Daud cleared his throat and finally spoke. “’Daud’ is what she called me. In our language, _her_ language it means something like ‘you who are loved’. He looked down into the girl-child’s small red knot of a face, and said “Mara. My mother’s name was Mara.”

Lily was at first delighted, but became subdued. As much as she wanted to honor this child with her mother’s name it would forever be tied with thing that had usurped it. No, Rose would not do. The Elder Woman asked her what was wrong, and Lily expressed sadness at not being able to use Rose as a name and the Elder Woman chuckled good-naturedly. “There are many ways to name a Rose, child – in the ‘Wilds we say it ‘Rhoswyn’. I’m sure your mother would not mind.”

Lily was nervous about a last name, afraid that Daud would somehow be ashamed to give the child his name but after some explaining that he in fact had no idea what his name was besides Daud, they settled on Mara Rhoswyn Merrock.

Daud sat with Lily and the Elder Woman for a while, savoring the warmth and comfort of the moment. He had gotten used to the shimmering black patterns around the child’s tightly scrunched eyes – or at least used to it enough not to alarm Lily. When Mara became restless and began snuffling and rooting around Daud’s chest, he gave her back over to Lily and after pulling the sheet and an extra blanket to boot over them both, walked back out into the great room with the Elder Woman. The others were still up on the roof, and he was grateful for a moment of quiet to clear his mind. There were plans yet to be made – they would need to sort out the Eyeless and the Eight whatever they may be, and decide what threat if any they would turn out to be. There was the matter of the doorway in Dead Man’s Alley in Dunwall, and figuring out what the implications of that were. The strange Overseer, or whatever he was – so many things that would need to be sorted and planned. He asked if the Elder Woman would stay long enough to help them plan – in her human form, of course and she agreed to help insofar as was her place to. He had many questions for her, but agreed that he needed some time to think about what he wanted to ask, and more importantly _why_. It wasn't often that such questions could be answered, and he wanted to be sure he was ready and able to maintain some form of control when he heard those answers.

When Daud and the Elder Woman joined the others on the roof for a smoke, he gave the good news to all that Lily was well, and the child was fine. It took a great deal of self-control to keep his growing rage hidden and in check, and while his mouth conveyed rosy warmth and comfort, his mind was planning one last hit, one last mark.


	81. PostPartum Interludes: Thomas

In the six weeks since Mara’s birth, Baleton had settled into a normalcy that worked just fine for Thomas. It had taken a few days to settle his affairs in Redmoor, and to his relief the Redmoor District Court Judge had been amenable to Thomas transferring to Baleton where he would work remotely, with the understanding that he would be expected to attend to court matters in Redmoor as needed. There were plenty of Clerks in Redmoor, so Thomas knew that being called back would be a rarity. He was more than happy to still be involved, however – his access to sensitive documents and records across the Isles was critical for the plans he had going forward in Baleton. He didn’t have many belongings to speak of, and moving them was simply a matter of packing and transporting a few boxes and a sizeable trunk. Thanks to Celia Wilde, he had a full new wardrobe, much of it paid for in trade of his old clothing which to Celia’s delight were not only not ‘old’ but well cared for and looked nearly new. Thomas was embarrassed that he had single-handedly managed to grow the ‘husky gents’ section substantially but his embarrassment had been short-lived once he had been fitted for some of the sleeker newer styles that the ‘Tog had to offer. For the first time in a long time, he felt whole – confident. He had the best of his past firmly back in place, and his future was looking far more hopeful than he would have seen had he not come to Baleton.

With Daud’s blessing, he had moved into the rooms above Stridside Curious Goods and had largely taken over the daily operations of the store. Daud was fine with this, and seemed pleased that Thomas had taken such an interest in both the legitimate and the decidedly less-legitimate aspects of running Stridside. Thomas was given full access to all of the dispatches that Daud had collected over the years, and had spent the better part of the past few weeks after closing time studying them and comparing them against his own. He was not surprised to see that while he had dropped off of the Dunwall radar, he had never dropped from Daud’s. It frustrated him to see that he had been working for the very man who Thomas had made it his business to find but after settling into the comfortable rhythms of Baleton he understood why Daud had shut himself away. After reading the many dispatches from all over the Isles, he also understood why Daud continued to make it his business to keep his eyes and ears open.

Thomas hadn’t known for instance that the accomplished and wealthy businessman Azariah Fillmore was none other than Slackjaw, and he found himself wondering more than a few times if his wife Anna knew. What would she think if she knew that the father of their children was the very man who arranged to have her cousins tortured and worked nearly to death in their own silver mines? Custis and Morgan _lived_ with them under his roof at the old Brigmore place (though, admittedly it was quite new and grand now but would always be ‘the old Brigmore place), for fucks sake. Even though Azariah Fillmore bore no resemblance to the Slackjaw he had been, surely living with him would have sparked some memory or something in Custis and Morgan. Then again, from what he had read in the dispatches neither seemed to have been in any mental condition to process something as complicated as memory. Until recently, that is.

Over the past weeks, Thomas had picked up where Daud left off on the dispatches, and out of nothing more than morbid curiosity had cast some lines amongst his network to find out more about the Pendletons and Slackjaw. Under the care of a Dr. Q.L. Killjoy in the late 40’s, both men had rallied into a near complete recovery during their stay at the Asylum on Carnate Island off the coast of Potterstead . Thomas hadn’t been able to find out much about Carnate Asylum outside of what scant knowledge he already had but whatever the good doctor had going on out there he was able to take the ruins of two deeply damaged men and build them up into a respectability that while not quite what it was, was far better than what could have transpired for them. All reports sent back had a commonality when it came to Custis and Morgan. Whatever treatment they had undergone, it had evidently cured them of their inclination toward being mean-spirited, brutish bastards as well. They did not speak – a given since their tongues had been torn out, but apparently operated quietly and efficiently as valuable members of Fillmore’s management team for the Brigmore distillery and tobacco operation. Dancing just outside the edges of this otherwise mundane rags-to-riches story was something a bit darker but no matter how many dispatches he sent out or to whom, the lines he drew back in were not more than whispers and rumors involving some dark conspiracy behind the oldest child’s true parentage and birth. There were hints of the Abbey’s involvement, which Thomas found implausible. He couldn’t see a connection between the Abbey and Slackjaw, and the only connection he knew of with Anna would have been her cousin Treavor’s remains which to his knowledge happened to still be languishing in the well-guarded boneyard.

He understood why the Overseers would guard the Loyalist section so fervently given the spotty reports of the Eyeless, or whatever they called themselves taking on grave robbing. Teague Martin may have been stripped from the books, but there was little chance that the Abbey would allow his remains to be taken for any reason – anything to keep even his remains in a perpetual state of disgrace. From what he understood from piecing together various accounts, Martin’s body had been stripped naked and his body burned – and his uniform and mask had simply been tossed in on top of what was left of him followed by a few buckets of quick-lime. It was possible that someone would find some morbid need to collect his mask as a souvenir but what didn’t make sense was why they would not relinquish Treavor Pendleton’s remains. When all was said and done, there was nothing particularly memorable or worth collecting from Pendleton’s remains nor would he have warranted a ‘perpetual disgrace’ state in the eyes of the Abbey. Why not just give what was left to him to his cousins and be done with it? He had considered talking to Celia Wilde about it, but figured she had enough on her mind as it was without turning over the bones of cousin Treavor. He did find it interesting that her husband happened to be a Hatter – and again, he found himself wondering how she could not know such a thing. Pendletons were not known for having much common sense in general, but one married a Hatter and the other a Bottle Street man, neither seeming to realize this about their own husbands. No matter. There were far more important matters at hand.

At night after closing up Stridside and balancing the till for the day, Thomas spent his time poring over the increasing numbers of dispatches studying them for a pattern, something that would tell him more about these Eyeless than what was already known. They were the leftovers from the Witches and Whalers, but they had also branched out to include members of the citizenry that were decidedly above the class level of the former black magic practitioners. Thomas had remembered them as a rag-tag group before leaving Dunwall but they had evidently steadily and increasingly grown in numbers and in assets. There was no one ‘club’ per se but he had managed to pin down at least a central location where the activity seemed to cluster. The Rat and Slug. The Rat and Slug had previously been the Duke and Dancer Pub, and while the name suggested ‘seedy underbelly’ the establishment itself had grown from a small pub in a single storefront to a single business that took up at least four storefronts from top to bottom, with a decidedly posh exterior. He could only assume that some serious remodeling had taken place, since he remembered that part of town being on the shabbier side of genteel.

He had chosen the Rat and Slug as his starting point for pinning down who this ‘Actor’ was who had taken Daud at a boy. He wasn’t sure why outside of a gut instinct, but felt strongly that given the current clientele and the nature of what the Actor had been doing to Daud that he was connected in some way. One thing that all of these Eyeless had in common was a determination to milk the Void in some way or other, regardless of what it took to do so – even if it meant breaking a child in such terrible ways. The Actor was beyond his reach of interrogation or revenge, but Thomas vowed that he would find out who he was and when he put a face to a name, it would be that face that he would assign as the face of what these Eyeless stood for. He had included in this sweep anything he could find out about Rose Everleigh, and about her mother. They clearly had a deeper connection to the Void than these Eyeless ever had – Keziah Everleigh would not have been executed so swiftly otherwise, and Rose – whatever that thing was, was nothing short of the Void itself. If he could find some link there that tied them all together, he may very well find something predating the Eyeless that could be used to unravel them from the ground up. He just needed to find the roots and go for those first. The rest would die on the vine, or so he hoped. Daud had briefly mentioned the Eight, and Thomas was convinced that in some way the Eight and the Eyeless were linked. He had found nothing of the Eight so far, not even so much as a mention – but he was counting on his thorough study of the steady stream of dispatches to eventually reveal some clue about them that he could use to their own ends.

The last packet of dispatches that he opened for this evening was the very one that he had most been anticipating. It was a collection of papers and a diary that had been nearly impossible to obtain and the enclosed note indicated that a larger crated shipment was en route to Baleton. He couldn’t imagine who the actual contractor was who obtained these items, but his man assured him that if anyone could get them, that particular contractor could. Whatever the case, Thomas was pleased that he had been able to get them. One by one he laid out the items, and flipped through them. He hadn’t meant to do so, but ended up engrossed reading for a good hour and a half straight smoking cigarette after cigarette. When he was finished, he sat back and let his mind wrap around what he had just read.

He had always known Piero Joplin was a strange man, but after reading his diary and especially after piecing together what it was he had likely done in Baleton under the auspices of ‘repairing and remodeling’ the lighthouse he realized that old daffy Piero had been so far beyond ‘strange’ that there were no words to describe the nature of what he had accomplished. Thomas had at first been excited about giving these collected papers and diary to the young Joplin, but after what he read he wasn’t sure if excited was the right word. There were gaps in the diary, pages missing and many of the schematics were water damaged or torn. While Thomas might have an idea of what Piero Joplin had done, he was afraid that the boy would have no trouble reading right between those missing pieces and figure out the exact story. Would it help him to know what happened to his mother, or would it shatter him? Joplin was young, yes but there was something about him that was far beyond his years – if anyone could handle those truths, it was him. As for the missing pieces, Thomas was nearly sure what it was that Piero Joplin had done – and the greater question would be whether young Joplin could handle the hardest truth of all: the truth about himself. Thomas did not intend to hide any of this information from Joplin, but he also did not intend to offer up suggestions on it either. No, this was something Joplin would have to figure out on his own. There was a wealth of information in the papers about the use of the lens material that Thomas found to be very useful in a more mundane sense – things that he and Cholly would certainly be talking about later. The equipment and materials that were en route to Baleton would be just enough to rebuild a lab that would allow for the proper experimentation and implementation of those materials. He found himself thinking about Billie’s clockwork arm and the implications of what could be done to ‘improve’ it using these materials. It had been a long time since he had felt a surge like this from inside – he felt as he did with Daud as a Whaler in the early days, standing at the precipice of great power knowing that it would soon be at their disposal.

Tomorrow evening, he would bring this new-found knowledge to the meeting that Daud had called. He already had the agenda for the meeting written – everything from the practical matters of providing protection for Lily and Mara to the more complicated plans and contingencies for infiltrating the Eyeless in Dunwall. To this agenda, he added the newly discovered information on Piero Joplin and the lab equipment acquisition. As thorough as he was in writing up the agenda for the meeting, he was certain that Daud would have far more to fill in – Daud always had a way of percolating plans in his head for weeks, coming up with ideas and tangents that never failed to throw Thomas for a loop, but at the very least there would be a thorough agenda in which to fill those gaps.

Just before turning down the lamps and settling into bed Thomas wrote a note for his runner to take to the ‘Rat Hole, and trotted downstairs to leave it in the usual place for pickups. If all went well, he, Cholly and Joplin would start assembling the lab within the week.


	82. PostPartum Interludes: Billie Lurk

Billie Lurk stood looking out over the water at the end of the pier in Baleton taking in what she had just found out. It was going to make the planning meeting tomorrow night just a little more complicated than it already would be for Lurk. She read the dispatch once more before crushing it into a tight ball in her clockwork fist and tossing it down into the water. She watched as the ball of vellum expanded, bloomed wetly and then disintegrated under the onslaught of tiny nibbles by curious fish and a few hungry eels.

So it was true then. It had cost a small fortune to finally track down the truth after these many weeks, but in some ways Lurk felt that the time and money had been wasted. She knew the truth back then though she couldn’t prove it. She felt it the moment she had been escorted from the Tower by Captain Cottings. She told herself that she couldn’t have possibly known, couldn’t have possibly felt what she did when the Captain’s hand clapped down on her shoulder in a friendly way. A small mean voice deep inside her head smirked _but that isn’t quite true, now is it Billie?_ It made what she had done to Captain Cottings that much worse, and when it came down to it in the moment it had been shamefully easy to push that revelation away – to deny it.

And now, written plainly in the neatly written coded dispatch that revelation had come back to her as a fact. Without this glaring truth now smeared across her very soul, how long would she have allowed this to go on? She lit another cigarette and smoked quietly, sinking into a deeper hole of quiet in the middle of the bustle of sailors and merchants, tourists and business-folk making their way across the docks coming from one place and going to another. It was time to face up to what she had done. It had gone on long enough.

She knew now without a doubt that if anyone were going to be going back to Dunwall, it would be herself and herself alone. She would insist on it. It would not be safe – she was still a wanted woman after what she had done after the coup but it wasn’t the Empress or Corvo that she worried most about. It was facing Captain Cottings again, or just Martha Cottings as she was known now by those who bothered to use her name. Lurk was certain that most just called her by her prisoner number.

She was going to have to tell the full truth now about those days and nights of the coup, and about the days following it. Whatever plan the Whalers were going to come up with tomorrow night, whether they liked it or not Billie Lurk was going to be announcing a not-so-small and entirely unrelated detour. She was going to break Martha Cottings out of Coldridge. It was the least she could do – after all, she was the one who put here there.

Billie flicked the spent butt of her cigarette out into the water and turned to make the walk back over to Stridside. There were a few more dispatches that needed to be written, and after that – much to think about.


	83. PostPartum Interludes: Joplin Pearl, late late for a very important date

Joplin turned over yet again, struggling to find any way that he could to get comfortable enough to finally fall asleep. His mind would no sooner fuzz into drowsiness than it would start racing again cataloging the many ways his life had changed over the past few months, and especially over the past six weeks. The Void was not something that interested him, and had he known that attending Mara’s birth those weeks ago would land him right at the Void’s door he would have turned down Cholly and Thomas flatly when asked to come to Mr. Daud’s home that day. While the terrifying images and sensations were intriguing, he found himself mentally looping in futile attempts to deny it away – to forget it but his will never quite seemed strong enough to push it fully from his thoughts. The leviathan swimming through the air, trailing shreds of its own dying flesh – the sensation of the very air itself squeezing down on him as if to fold him into some smaller and smaller version of himself, the building shaking itself to the foundations – all of it, every curiosity he had about it he would gladly trade to just make it go away. His dreams had been increasingly strange for months, and these past few weeks had tipped into something that he could no longer categorize as just ‘strange’. He had very little to no memory of these dreams, but they lingered in some way inside of him after waking like a disease eating away at the fabric of his brain. He was tired all the time, and yet found himself working harder and faster toward something he was no longer sure of.

The dreams about the mechanical men had been what sparked his idea to make Captain Foster a new arm. At the time he had written it off as the result of spending too much time surrounded by bits and bobs of scrap metal tinkering together some small gadget or other for the ‘Rat Hole but even after the pressure plate system had been finished and the keyless locks perfected, his mind still raced and dashed along looking for more to make. When the arm was finished, Joplin hoped that his dreams would subside but they seemed to intensify and images of them began leaking into his waking memory. He dreamed of a man run through with a blade and was even now still haunted by the sound of the man’s low smooth chuckle as he pulled the blade from between the metal spokes of his ribcage with a horrific raking screech. A woman with an impossible number of fat wharf roaches pouring from her mouth and swarming her head – every detail of them horrifically magnified, the skin of her face snagging on their hooked legs and peeling away in small wet flaps revealing winks of shiny metal underneath. An army of masked figures moving like the well-oiled human-machines they were – moving as one, thinking as one.

Those were not the worst of the dreams, no. The worst of them were the ones he hoped beyond hope to not have to face tonight should he finally fall asleep. There were women in these dreams, many identical women with hair like fire laid out on some kind of padded tables – their bodies writhing under the machinations of a man whose face he could never quite catch sight of but knew that under his skin, intertwined with his very bones were threads and shards of metal. He wasn’t sure what exactly the man was doing to them, but the sounds the women were making and the liquid movement of their forms in the shadows thrown from their burning hair suggested some lewdness that was foreign to him. From these particular dreams he would wake terrified, sweating – ashamed to the point of nausea at the warm stickiness that invariably spurted onto his belly upon waking. It happened every time with these particular dreams, this unwanted purge. He felt sick thinking about it happening again. He hadn’t had a woman before – hadn’t even seen one naked except for in these dreams. Before these dreams started, he would fetch his mettle in private times like any other guy would he supposed – he rather liked the sensation, and the mental calmness it brought him afterward – or had, anyway. He could not think about touching himself now without the threads of those horrible dreams creeping in, so he simply did not.

He turned again in his bed, and forced his mind to turn to practical matters. Tomorrow night would be his first meeting as a Whaler, though he didn’t quite consider himself one in the same way that Cholly did. Cholly was all-in after shaking Mr. Daud’s hand on it. They would still be ‘Rats, of course but their alignment with the Whalers would open up a good number of opportunities as an extension of them. Information had always been the currency of the ‘Rats, and Joplin was relieved to find that Thomas, Captain Foster (he couldn’t quite think of her as Lurk – wasn’t sure if he ever really would) and Mr. Daud were of the same mind. The killing days were over, thankfully and Mr. Daud seemed more interested in Joplin as a lab partner than a killing partner or pawn. He was more than happy to participate in that sense, and was thrilled to help plan for a lab that hopefully would one day be built in full underneath ‘Stridside. He felt certain with adequate time, materials and assistance he would find a way to bring his mother back from wherever she had disappeared to inside of herself. If he could build a mechanical arm and have it become somehow _sentient_ then he could damned well build or concoct something that would bring his mother back. He closed his eyes, and fell asleep thinking of the warmth of his mother, the smell of her freshly washed hair and fragrant oils the ladies of the Lodge would dot here and there on her skin before each of his visits. The last waking thought was a favorite image that he would turn to in dark moments – it was the moment a light finally turned on behind her eyes and she would hold out her arms and take him into them – her voice in his ear for the first time, the sound of her laughter…

***

_… echoed hollowly around him. He looked around – where was he? He had been walking somewhere, there was somewhere he was supposed to be but he heard something – a shout maybe? He turned around in a circle and looked around at the quiet town. It was Baleton, but not a Baleton he knew. It was dark – the streetlamps were off, no… there_ were _no streetlamps, just the occasional oil lamp dotted at lengths along the empty main street. It was quiet and foggy and all around him the air had taken on the washed out tone of old wood, or softly rusted metal. He should hear the sea, smell the hemlock on the air but there was nothing but quiet and the smell of old books, dust. Where was he going? Oh yes, that’s right – the castle ruins. He was supposed to meet someone up there but he couldn’t remember who. He walked along the quiet street, and the only movement that he could sense was his own. Even the low flames in the oil lamps seemed to be held in some strange still state, frozen beams of weak light leading down to static circles of flat orange illumination around the bases of their poles. He walked past businesses whose facades he knew, but were adorned with signs he did not recognize. He continued past the ‘Flask, which looked pretty much the same as it always had – and cut up the road leading toward the ruins. The sky was dark, full of dense clouds that bulged down toward him their bottoms heavy with some dark opaque matter. Though it was completely dark, he found himself able to see the path just fine – though the fog prevented him from seeing more than a few feet in any direction. He was coming up on the castle ruins now – they should be just on his right… He stopped, gasping at what he saw there, the air leaving him in an abrupt light-headed whufff. The ruins were not there – the_ castle _was. It rose up in his vision, a solid structure with tightly packed stones – low and broad, with a row of dimly lit windows across the bottom part of it. The windows looked warm and inviting, and he wanted nothing more than to be in that castle at that moment._

_He was curiously unafraid as he approached the heavy wooden doors and then laid down several hard knocks with the heavy knocker-bar that was installed on the left-hand door. He held his ear to the door and listened and could hear soft footsteps clicking toward the door, and then stood back when it opened. A small face peered out at him – a young servant girl dressed in old-fashioned garb, and without a word led him indoors. She seemed to know him, or at least recognize him and in a breathy voice informed him that he was late, but that he hadn’t missed too much. She walked him into the main room at the center of the structure, and chose one of the many doors there to lead him into. She gestured for him to continue on down the stairs, and then bade him a good night. Joplin hesitated for a moment, some form of common sense beginning to trickle coldly into whatever dream state he was currently in. He started down the stairs cautiously, taking the time to look back at each landing as he descended. To his frustration, there never seemed to be the same number of steps there as those he had counted in his head as he descended them. The landing seemed to be either too far away, or too high – or sometimes just one step behind him when he knew that he had taken more than twenty steps down. He could hear something down at the bottom of the stairs, just around the corner – glass clinking, the burr of some kind of machine. He could smell machine oil now, the rich smell of molten metal – and he felt himself relaxing. These were comforting things – building, creating. He picked up his step, both aware that he had kept someone waiting and equally aware that he had no idea who it might be._

_When he stepped into the central room, he couldn’t help but to admire the workshop he found there. The walls were lined with tools, shelves held neatly arranged bottles and tubes of various reagents and unguents. The room was well-lit with strings of lights that cast a bright but slightly greenish glow across the workshop. In the middle of the room was an impressive lab bar with a couple of sinks, a few hookups for heat-burners (though he couldn’t tell how they would be powered – the usual whale oil contraptions were nowhere to be seen). Standing with his back to him was the man with whom he was supposed to meet. He was dressed in a drubby old plaid jacket with the tails of an ill-fitting well-worn shirt peeping from the bottom, and his pointy elbows worked busily on either side of him at something in front of him that Joplin could not see._

_As Joplin approached, the closer he got to him the more he realized that he was not a man really – he didn’t appear to be much older than himself. He was clearly focused on whatever it was that Joplin could not yet see. Whatever it was, it was clearly the source of the grinding and screeching and it was throwing up bright bits of spark into the heavy leather protective goggle-fitted headgear that the young man was wearing. “Ah, you finally made it. I wondered when you would arrive. No better time than the present.” His voice thin and reedy, and was somewhat muffled but clear enough to make out from under the gear. Joplin wasn’t sure what to say, and at the silence the young man turned and looked at Joplin his face unreadable behind the heavy goggles fitted into the leather cowl. “Well, are you ready or not? Come on, I need your help.” Joplin approached him, unsure what was expected of him given that he didn’t even know what the guy was doing._

_The man stood back and waved his arm down presenting what he was working on to Joplin as if proudly revealing some great secret. All Joplin could see was a variety of chunks of what looked like glass – albeit very clear glass, unlike any he had ever seen. He recognized the small machine in the middle of the chunks as a grinder. The young man stood there expectantly clearly waiting for a reaction. Joplin felt awkward, but played along. “Extraordinary” he said, groaning inwardly at how stupid it sounded to himself. Who talks like that, anyway? It had been the first thing that had come to his mind, though and it seemed to please the other young man so Joplin came closer as the man picked up a chunk of the glass and began grinding away at the already smooth side he had been working on. Something, he wasn’t sure what – compelled him to speak up in the way that he generally tended to do when he saw someone doing something wrong and he said “Wait, stop – you don’t have the right angle”. When the young man turned to him, Joplin’s mind went blank. What on earth was he talking about? The young man took the chunk of glass and handed it to Joplin, who took it and looked down at it dumbly as the young man admonished him. “Come now, surely you aren’t teasing me at a time like this after keeping me waiting? Show me!”_

_Joplin turned the chunk of glass over in his hand and something tickled deep in his brain – something almost like a memory. The young man stood back, and Joplin put the glass to the grinder and began to slowly and methodically grind down the chunk down to a thick flatness, and continued until nothing was left but a small thin disc. He could sense the small bits of molten glass flecking his face and could smell them burning in his hair, but it was painless. He stood back, blew on the disc to free it from the fine powder and picked up a rough rag that was lying beside the grinder and began polishing the disc to a clear shine. Yes, that was exactly it. Joplin looked through the disc at the young man and knew then what it was he was meant to do. “You remember, don’t you.” The young man reached up and pulled the headgear up and over his head, careful not to knock aside his old-fashioned spectacles. He held the gear at his side and when their eyes met, Joplin lost his words. He backed away quickly looking around wildly for doors that were no longer there. His fist closed reflexively around the small glass disc, only dimly aware of the bite of the edges of it into the skin of his palm._ His face! No! _Joplin’s mind turned itself inside out in a blind panic as the young man with his own face drew closer. The young man reached for Joplin, beseeching him to not be afraid but it was far too late for that – Joplin held his breath as the young man leaned in, the pupils of his eyes behind those thick spectacles grossly magnified – no, not magnified, by the gods they were somehow_ leaking _into the very eyes themselves filling them with black and Joplin_

***

… slammed awake, sitting bolt upright in his bed gasping for breath and looking around at his moonlit quarters. A dream. That’s all. He brought his hands to his face, stopping only at the sight of blood and sat for a long time in the semi-dark and quiet of his room watching the faint patterns of quicksilver light flickering through small round lens he held in his bloody palm.


	84. PostPartum Interludes: Lily Everleigh

Lily closed the small journal and laid it in her lap, absently running her fingers along the silver lines of the rose stems and thorns that were foil stamped into the black leather. It was a beautiful cover. She had never seen foil stamping like this. She had taken time to polish the leather and buff the foil and the red shine of the roses was as bright as it no doubt was when her mother had it years before. She wondered what was going through young Rose’s mind the first time she opened the journal, the new creamy vellum block of sheets cracking open to that first blank page. She had read the journal enough times now that she had it more or less memorized but she found herself reaching for it often nonetheless, flipping it open to a random entry and losing herself once again in that written moment of her mother’s life. As easy as it came to her now, reading the journal had not been so easy at first. She had only completed a few weeks of school prior to all of this, and she was frustrated at the fact that there were still more words that she didn’t know than those she did. Daud had been so patient with her though. 

After Mara had been born, she found herself in a cycle of barely awake and asleep – waking every few hours to feed Mara. A thick fog had seemed to set into her brain right after Mara was born, and Lily felt altogether too slow to take on something as arduous as lifting a book, much less trying to read one. It had taken some time to heal from the ordeal. She could shift comfortably now, stand, walk and sit with no pain. 

Anne had been especially careful in her task of helping Lily to be more ready for Mara to come. There had been some discussion in the beginning about her being ‘intact’ which seemed to alarm Anne, and after the first examination she had explained to Lily that ‘intact’ was more of an idea than an actual thing. It had been thought for some time that there was some sort of full physical barrier that was meant to be ‘broken’ in a woman and in Lily’s case she did indeed have a barrier there – or a partial one anyway. 

Lily had been somewhat confused at first to learn that not all girls were born with such a thing, and unfortunately those rare cases where they were had come to be perceived as a ‘normal’ thing for all women. She and Anne had talked about her moon times – how deeply painful they had been, and how embarrassingly heavy. Lily fortunately had a very small part of an opening that had allowed for her blood to drain monthly, but she was in no way prepared for childbirth, and so Anne had given her light ether and carefully taken a scalpel to her. 

The birth itself was still a blur in Lily’s mind. She couldn’t remember pain from it but she could remember the feeling when she felt something _give_ deep inside, and then the sensation of the bulk of her child dropping lower inside of her and then finally that moment when the overwhelming urge to push overtook everything else in her mind. She remembered screaming, swearing – howling, and that raw roar that the Elder Woman Teresa had called ‘the birth cry’ – the moment when a woman is taken over by the deepest of her instincts. She hadn’t had to push much. Mara was on the small side, but otherwise normal according to Anne and the Elder Woman – except for the eyes, of course. 

At first Lily had been terrified, babbling about it until she looked up realizing just who it was she had been babbling to. The Elder Woman had no eyes either – never had them. She had been born that way, just like Mara and there were plenty of other ways to see. Time would tell how little Mara would see, and the Elder Woman promised she’d always be nearby to help and give guidance and to teach Mara how to see without the benefit of eyes – though she reckoned that Mara was special and probably wouldn’t need help so much as guidance with what it was she was able to see. Lily didn’t want to think that far ahead. For now, she was content with the warmth and comfort of her child – always within an arm’s reach except for when she was being bathed or changed, or when Daud was with her. There would be plenty of time to think about that. Her child was sleeping peacefully now, and right now her mind was with her mother. 

She hadn’t felt her mother since that last moment in the alleyway with her – ‘help her’ Rose had said, and when Lily closed her eyes she could hear her still, could bring the smell and warmth of her to her mind clearly. All those years without her, and in that brief moment in her mother’s arms she hadn’t realized how much she had missed her. So much of it had been blocked away, hidden somewhere in her mind away from herself but it was all so clear now. Memories she had forgotten had come back – small snippets of moments that weren’t quite linear, just welcome glimpses back to an earlier time. 

Lily put the journal back on the nightstand beside the thick files that held the notes that Overseer Martin had taken on her mother, along with the observations and annotations that had been added by other Overseers – as well as High Overseer Campbell himself, as Daud had explained. It had taken some time to get to where she could read these on her own. When Daud had first brought her the stack of books and files, she had wanted nothing more than to read them but found too many of the words too difficult to make out still. In the times where she had asked Daud to read them to her, he had continued to stubbornly refuse and instead sat by her side while Mara was asleep helping her sound out the words one by one. In time, she found that she didn’t need his help to read but still he stayed by her side answering her many questions and filling in every gap that he could for her. 

She knew what her mother did at the ‘Flask, but after all the reading and talking with Daud she still had some trouble connecting the Dunwall Rose with the Baleton Rose, and still did not understand why her mother had leapt to her death leaving Lily behind. Her mother had been young and innocent – she had indeed never so much as stepped foot in the Golden Cat. Daud had told her about a young woman named Betty Riley who did work at the Golden Cat, who sometimes went by Rose – and this woman bore a bit of a resemblance to Rose, though her skin and hair was a little darker. This Betty Riley was notorious in her methods from what Daud understood, and after some further explanation about Daud’s own proclivities – or lack thereof, she believed him when he said that he did not know from experience about her or any other Golden Cat girl for that matter. Lily wondered what the connection was between Betty and her mother – in particular how and why Rose had been content to pass Betty’s story and past on as her own, but nothing in the stack of reading she had gone through many times had led to anything. 

Daud had some suspicion that they were connected in some way – if not by knowing each other personally, then by some connection through the things that Teague Martin had gotten her mother into by way of the ritual book. He didn’t explain his suspicions except to say that some people he knew had been up to something other than whoring with Betty Riley in Dunwall, but until he knew more he didn’t feel it was useful to speculate. Daud had carefully gone through the ritual book with Lily – it was not written in Isles Common or any other language that Lily could imagine being able to read, but Daud knew his way around it pretty well and his explanations of the strange diagrams and symbols made sense enough to Lily. 

She hadn’t imagined that these things pertaining to the Void were more of a form of math and philosophy than they were magic – to this point, she had come to understand that the workings of the Outsider and other beings like him were far more sophisticated than the boogeymen tricksters she had thought them to be. There were many times where Daud would look up from a page and just talk about things in his past, his dealings with the Outsider and other people who were marked like he was. He talked about runes and charms, about the transfer and draining of Void energy, and how the Abbey had largely mistaken these natural processes for unnatural ones simply because of the eldritch nature by which those things happened. 

She loved listening to Daud talk about the Abbey, the Whalers, about Corvo Attano and Emily, about the Loyalists – and about his days at the Academy, and his experiments there. It was strange to think of Daud as a bookish type, but after the many days and evenings spent with him it was clear that in these moments he was more himself than perhaps he had ever been as the Knife of Dunwall. She imagined years from now Daud spending these same kinds of hours with Mara, telling her stories – teaching her things. She wondered what kind of child Mara would be – would she be sharp and inquisitive, dark and moody – both, perhaps? She had wondered these things aloud to Daud a few times, but he never seemed comfortable to expand on them and instead focused on the tasks at hand. 

She was reaching for the packet of files on her mother when she heard Mara stirring in her bassinette. Mara never cried, and as much as she wondered and fretted about that the Elder Woman had assured her that it was just fine and that child would grow into herself as she was meant to and more importantly at her own pace. Lily smiled a little at how quickly Daud leapt up from the small writing desk he had set up in her room, and went straight to Mara lifting her gently into his chest where she went quiet and content against the warmth of his chest. This night, Daud had been busily writing in his log book, preparing for the following night’s meeting – the past week or so his pace had picked up considerably, and though he was at a feverish pace in the planning for the meeting it took but a single little snuffle or grunt from Mara and he was up in a flash, the meeting notes forgotten for a moment. He clearly enjoyed those moments, often taking Mara on little walks through the house – sometimes settling in his rocker in his room, where he would simply talk to her whispering his life into her tiny ear. These moments were ones that Lily was happy to leave him to, and she smiled as Daud looked over at her with as close to a smile as he was apt to get and then took little Mara on another walk. When Daud shut the door gently shut behind him, Lily picked up the packet and leafed through the pages there and began to read them as if for the first time – hoping to find some little thing she had missed, some hint or clue that would bring her mother back to her.


	85. The Whalers of Baleton Convene: Battle Plans

Thomas opened up his ledger and began to record who was in attendance: Daud, Billie Lurk, Thomas Kerrigan, Cholly Shanks, Joplin Pearl. Lib Fury was going to stay with Lily and Mara, and Anne was busy at the bakery working in the ‘storeroom’ with her boys to inventory and catalog the available items that might prove useful for any possible plans. The Elder Woman assured that she would be happy to discuss the plans and offer guidance as needed, but this particular evening she was needed in the ‘Wilds. Thomas was pleased that the core members were in attendance, even if the others couldn’t make the meeting for various reasons. He found himself curiously excited about the idea of an official convening of the Whalers after so many years of convincing himself that he had put this particular ‘hands on’ aspect of it behind him. The agenda was tight. He had spent much time putting together a talking list, along with annotations of possible questions that may need to be asked and answered. In the early days, these types of notes were valuable but tended to be compiled under some level of duress or other, and meetings were nearly always interrupted by signals from the Whalers who were keeping watch over the hideout. All that was missing was the large board with maps and various targets pinned to it by spent darts, but with a comprehensive agenda they wouldn’t really need one. 

The meeting wasn’t quite ready to start yet, so Thomas spent a few moments quietly observing the others – Daud was calm and quiet as usual, seemingly relaxed. Lurk was quiet and a bit somber, fidgeting between smokes – but that wasn’t entirely unheard of. She generally had been so before meetings, becoming more animated as the various ideas gelled into solid plans. Cholly was playing the part of the serious young newcomer, but Thomas was glad to see a spark of excitement there underneath it. He had a good feeling about this kid, and knew that his enthusiasm would bring the others in with him. Joplin was quiet and brooding, clearly sleep deprived and nervous.

Thomas was well aware that Joplin wanted no part of this outside of what he could contribute insofar as supplies and ideas on how to make a given thing work differently, and better but he was glad to see the boy here. The lab equipment had arrived as expected, and not so much as a single flask had been damaged in the transit. Thomas hadn’t done more than take a cursory peek inside the crates, but had seen that while a bit outdated – the various pieces of equipment inside them looked to be in good working order. The journals and stacks of papers he had wrapped carefully and tucked in with the lab equipment, and he wondered what the boy’s reaction would be when he was surprised with them after the meeting. Perhaps that would perk him up a little, though it was hard to say what reaction reading the journal would have. It made Thomas deeply uncomfortable to think about and so he turned his thoughts toward the matter at hand. 

He was scratching the date and time at the top of the ledger page when Daud signaled to get things started. They all knew what they were here for, but these meetings had a structure – an almost ritualistic pattern of events that were not entirely unlike the more mundane official meetings he had attended and officiated in his capacity as a clerk of court.

The meeting started with a recap of the information that each held, and had acquired since the last couple of impromptu meetings. Thomas had two columns ready in his ledger to record what was known so far, and what was not and dutifully transcribed as the discussion began. 

Known:

1\. The Eyeless – a group of Void-obsessed people who sought to obtain and use the powers of the Void for their own purposes. Formed in the time after Daud and Delilah’s departures from Dunwall in 1837 leading up to the appearance, and then subsequent disappearance of Zhukov in 1851. Former Whalers, Witches and those who had been under their tutelage or command. The group has grown in size after Delilah’s failed coup and has branched out to include nobles, aristocrats, regular citizens and possibly former members of the Abbey, and students of the Academy though there is little more than rumor available about the latter two. Their current activity is centered in the Rat and Slug, formerly the location of the Duke and Dancer Pub. A well-moneyed and connected group, becoming far more sophisticated with time. It is possible that there is a connection with a group in Karnaca who had, under similar auspices put various Void artifacts to personal use in ways that had previously been thought impossible (outside of those with a working knowledge of the MetaMyst as it has come to be known). A known example reported by Lurk is Paolo Sandro, a member of the Duke’s Council and former Howler. He was witnessed using bone charms in addition to what we assume to be the marked hand of a certainly-deceased Granny Rags. Another known example is Breanna Ashworth who was reported to Lurk as having the capacity to use bone charms without the benefit of a mark. Daud reported that Breanna was capable of such a thing long before she met Delilah and that it is highly likely that she is actively involved with one of these groups – possibly as a leader of them after the disbandment of the Witches after Delilah’s failed coup. Her whereabouts are unknown at this time. There is some speculation that the Actor who abducted Daud as a boy was involved with some earlier iteration of this group, or at the least left some documentation of his work that is used by this group given the nature of what was done to Daud as a child.

2\. The Eight – a group that was connected in some way by association with the Void. Daud had mentioned that the Outsider had commented back in 1837 that there were ‘eight in the world’ that were marked, but outside of those known to have the mark there is nothing to suggest that these group of marked individuals represent any sort of cohesive entity. The Elder Woman had suggested to Daud on the day that he took down Hilliard Humphreys for the last time that The Eight held the secrets to the Void and its powers – secrets that are elusive to the Eyeless, but has not clarified further or spoken of it since. 

3\. A Doorway to the Void – in Dead Man’s alley, next to Teague Martin’s old building. It is this doorway that the Eyeless seek to enter, but cannot and are currently looking for a way in. On the night of Mara’s birth, Daud had been informed by Lily on behalf of the Outsider that he is able to enter the doorway. It is presumed that the Eyeless know this is as well, and this is why they have been looking for Daud for all these years – to use him to get through the doorway. While it is not known for sure, it is safe to presume that rumors of Daud being in Baleton have reached and spread throughout Dunwall putting all of the Whalers in danger of imminent attack. 

Unknowns:

1\. The nature of the strange ‘Overseer’ that Lily saw in Dead Man’s Alley whilst in a fugue state. The symbol on the coin given to Daud is a rose merged with a symbol used by the Eyeless – the infinity symbol. This in and of itself is troubling given the history of the building and surrounding area, its inhabitants and the seeming disappearance of the entity known as Rose after Mara’s birth. It is not known who this group is or whether they have a connection to the Eyeless or the Eight, but the possibility is strong that there is some crossover with the Eyeless given the rumors of the involvement of former members of the Abbey – perhaps a splinter group of the Eyeless? 

2\. The nature of the establishment currently in place in Teague Martin’s old building. Not one informant has found a way inside the building, and no one has ever been seen coming or going from the building. Reports show it to have been fully renovated, and the roof of the building converted into something resembling a solarium, with glass panels extending up to at least another floor’s worth of space. There are no records of renovation construction, nor any witnesses who can credibly claim to know who is in ownership of the establishment or the nature of its purpose. It is suspected that there is some involvement with the Eyeless and the strange ‘Overseer’ given the proximity of Dead Man’s Alley, and the appearance of the strange ‘Overseer’ in the alley.

3\. Lurk reports the possibility that Kirin Jindosh may be involved to some extent either directly or indirectly through proxy. While carrying out a reconnaissance run in the Lower Aventa District in Karnaca in 1852, Lurk noted a hidden workshop that appeared to be dedicated to the development and manufacture of a smaller, more human-sized version of the Clockwork Soldiers. Upon return after the events of the coup, the workshop had been stripped and emptied. Reports from Dunwall during this time report a splinter group of Hatters having acquired some or all parts of a Clockwork Soldier, and had developed a working prototype that was said to be considerably smaller and far more ‘human-like’. It is not known at this time if the smaller version was an amalgam of the regular Clockwork Soldier parts and unrelated parts, or if they were in fact augmented or created from the missing pieces from Karnaca. While there is nothing to suggest that this prototype is related to the Eyeless, the Eight or the strange ‘Overseer’ entity(ies?) there is every reason to believe that this subgroup of Hatters would conceivably see a lucrative opportunity in providing such technology to such groups. While it cannot be ruled in as a ‘known’ it is well worth ruling in as a precaution, given the decidedly deadly nature of the Clockwork Soldiers. 

Goal: Infiltrate the Eyeless through use of the available network members. Cholly Shanks suggested that certain older current ‘Rats and older former ‘Rats who are involved in various enterprises and organizations in Dunwall would be prime candidates for hosting, safe housing and facilitating meetings as needed between informants and infiltrates.

Desired Outcome: discover the methods and materials used by these groups, discover the connection (if any) between them, take down key members of the group(s) and find a way to shut the doorway to the Void before anyone can enter it. Daud has stated the Outsider seems to be in a weakened, if not vulnerable (relatively) state and while one or two people would not effective against such a being – if there were enough of them using powerful enough methods, could find a way to ‘fight’ the Outsider and either capture him for their own use, or eliminate him and access the powers of the Void directly.

Possible complications:

1\. Members of one of these groups launches an attack, and kidnaps Daud. Daud has stated that this will not happen, but that it could if there were enough people to do it using ways to suppress his magic while strengthening their own. Given the recent boost to the strength and depth of Whaler abilities without need of augmentation or replenishment by solution, it is not likely to happen but must be considered. It must also be considered that should any one of the members find out about Lily or Mara, they would both be in danger of being taken and harmed in order to manipulate Daud in their favor. Another complication would be taking one of the other Whalers, but at this time the primary target is Daud and the likely secondary his daughter. 

2\. The Outsider decides to interfere or intervene in such a way that the mission will be complicated in unknown ways, resulting in what is usually a poor outcome. 

3\. The Crown becomes involved, or worse – is already actively involved in one or more of these groups. It is the most unlikely scenario, but Lurk witnessed that Empress Emily herself bears the mark of the Outsider and while relations with the Abbey are cordial it could also be a possibility that the Crown would see an advantage in wresting control of the Void, and using one or more of these groups to do so. The Crown no doubt knows Daud’s whereabouts by now, and would see a personal benefit in capturing Daud and could be the driving force (and monetary provider) to groups seeking to capture him. 

4\. The Abbey could provide a layer of complication that while not much further than annoyance, could prove to hamper efforts to further investigations. It is doubtful that active and current members of the Abbey are involved with any of the aforementioned groups. Given the nature of the Abbey, it is not likely that a splinter organization would be tolerated but rather investigated. Cholly Shanks offered that the Elder Woman had hosted Overseers and Sisters in the past, and may be able to arrange for a favor that would help provide information and insight from within the Abbey.

Alternatives to act as contingencies:

1\. Daud stated that while the plans to now were sound, he had a plan that was more simple. He recounted for those in attendance complications that had arisen when the Whalers found the perfect place for a new hideout, but were actively being prevented from accessing it by a notorious gang at the time that were known as the Pluckebaum Mob. Frederika Pluckebaum was the meanest old bitch Daud had ever come up against – spiteful for the sake of being so, and had her ‘boys’ by the stones to the point that they would go out of their way to _seek out_ being assholes to the Whalers – a bravado that few, if any had ever shown to Daud and his Whalers. The building Daud had his eye on in the Flooded District wasn’t even part of the Pluckebaum territory, but Frederika had it in her mind that she simply didn’t want the Whalers there. She sent her ‘boys’ out on endless runs to create as much irritation for Daud as possible by hindering any and every effort to relocate. They sabotaged equipment, further damaged structures, set up stinger and black powder traps and any number of other small nuisances. Eventually this created the necessity to take out the Pluckebaum Mob entirely. Daud didn’t like the idea of striking down people unless there was coin or a damned good cause, but he was going to have that building, period. It had proven to be a fairly simple matter, however. Daud made a point of bypassing the ‘boys’ altogether and went straight to Frederika, removing her head from her shoulders with a single swing of his blade – sending it toppling into the large cookpot that she had been standing over while cooking up grub for her ‘boys’. Within hours the Pluckebaum Mob was gone – disbanded swiftly and entirely with the death of old Marm Pluckebaum. No Marm, no Mob. Daud then went on to say that this also was a matter of simply starting at the top with the source of the problem. Remove the source and you remove the problem. He said that he was going to … 

Thomas stopped, stunned, his hand hovering over the ledger and looked around at the others. Billie was clearly alarmed - staring at Daud, her eye wide. Cholly was red in the face, rubbing his mouth hard - appearing to be stifling a laugh. Joplin had his fingertips tented under his chin, his eyes boring into Daud through his thick spectacles. What was going on? Surely he had misheard? “I’m sorry, sir but did you just say…”

Daud leaned over the table and spoke slowly and deliberately, making eye contact with each of them leaving no doubt about what it was he had said. “Let me repeat myself, Thomas. I’m going to the Void to find the Outsider, and when I do I’m going to kill the sonofabitch.”


	86. Revelations

For a long moment the room was entirely silent. Daud sat back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest – his expression stormy, but his posture relaxed. He wondered who would speak first, and he was not entirely surprised that it was Joplin. Joplin didn’t waste any time with hemming or hawing, nor did he flinch in his approach.

“And you think you can kill the Outsider because… “. Daud stared at Joplin, studying the boy’s eyes burning into him from behind the thick lenses. He was taken aback – in all the times in his life that he had declared the intention to kill someone, not once had anyone questioned his ability to do so. He found himself impressed with the boy’s straightforward approach, and answered frankly. “That thing Rose is the closest thing I’ve seen to the Outsider, and at one time that thing – or some part of it was human. When I faced that thing down outside the ‘Rat I saw something that I had not expected to see. Weakness, Joplin. Plain human weakness. It was just for a second or two, but it was enough for me to realize that something human was still inside of it – something that could be hurt. You carve out some part of a thing, no matter how weak that part may be – and you have weakened the whole of it. I would bet my life that the Outsider is no different than Rose in that aspect. I have never seen weakness in the Outsider until now."

"When I first saw him in 1820, he looked very different – young, not much older looking than yourself, but old looking at the same time. I don’t mean old like an old man, but there was something about the black eyes or maybe his voice. His skin was smooth, had some color to it. These past few months though, he’s grown thin and pale. He looks different, sounds different. His skin is dry and flaking away, and his eyes are dull. Does that sound like something that can’t die? I always thought of him as some sort of god, but the more I’ve seen of him the more I realize that while he may be some sort of god – part of him isn’t, and that part is weak and growing weaker. Who’s to say that were I to strike at that weakness, that it would not damage him further if not kill him?” 

Joplin thought for a moment, narrowing his eyes before answering. “And what weapon does one use against a god, weak or not Mr. Daud? Have you struck at him before? Have you considered the possibility that a blade would simply pass through him? And what if you do strike him down? What if someone or something is there to simply put him back together again like Rose did with H.H.?” 

Daud explained at that point his encounter with the Outsider on the top of his building the evening he was putting Billie and Thomas through their paces with their new-found abilities. He reminded Joplin about the lightning that night, and that in the time-stilled Void-space of the rooftop the Outsider’s skin had been pierced by the frozen shards of it as he ran his fingers through it to break them. He did not bleed or seem to feel pain, but it tore through his skin like a blade would tear through anyone else’s. As for re-constituting him, who would so do? Yes, Rose had reconstituted H.H. a couple of times, but in all of Daud’s time spent in the Outsider’s presence he had never seen or sensed another soul there in the Void – much less one that would act as some resurrecting ally. He knew now that the Outsider was technically not alone in the Void, but that didn’t mean he had friends there. Joplin grew quiet at this, considering the possibilities but before he could speak Billie found her words. 

“Ok, Daud. Let’s say you find a way to get inside the Void, you find the Outsider and kill him. Then what? You realize that won’t slow down these Eyeless, or the Eight or whoever they are. They’ll be that much more determined to get inside the Void to take it for themselves. There’s a door there, and I don’t think that door will disappear when the Outsider does. Who is going to be protecting the Void from them, if there isn’t anyone or anything there behind that door to stop them? What’s going to stop them from putting their own Outsider in there? What if _Rose_ decides to step through that door? Who’s going to stop _her_? She doesn’t have or need the Outsider’s powers, Daud – she has her own.”

Daud sat for a moment turning Billie’s words over in his mind before speaking. “She may have her own powers, Billie but she no longer has the ability to share them.”

Billie narrowed her eye and leaned forward, elbows on the table with her fingers intertwined. “What makes you say that, Daud?”

Billie had him, but he didn’t mind tipping this particular card now. There was no longer any need to keep it close. He drew a breath, and let it out slowly mentally steeling himself against the anger that he knew would come rushing in were he to let it.

“Rose passed this power into my daughter, Billie. She intended to pass herself into my daughter behind it. She was going to take my daughter’s skin for herself and use the power that she took from me to her own ends. Not unlike Delilah had planned for Emily Kaldwin back in ’37. I don’t know how much you knew about what Delilah had planned, but you weren’t there when I found out exactly how she planned to do it. Delilah painted a portrait of Emily Kaldwin, and was going to possess her through it and live out her life from _within_ Emily Kaldwin."

"She would have done so, had I not tracked her down and sent her ass straight into the Void. Rose clearly picked up this idea while she was in the Void, and picked up some of my own ideas on plant propagation and decided to do the same thing through a different means. She possessed me, took my bond, and she passed it into my child through... the process. She was still able to use that power herself right up until the Outsider decided to take it back."

"Yes, Billie – when Lily was in the Void, or in Dunwall or wherever the hell she was with him he took it away from my child. He tore it out of her, right through her fucking _eyes_ Billie. He tore my child’s fucking _eyes out_ to get that bond back. He has it now. Rose doesn’t. That’s why she left Baleton. There was nothing here she wanted or could use anymore. Do you know what was left behind, Lurk? What was left of my child? It wasn’t just the bond that was torn away from her. You remember Addie Bitterleaf?” 

Billie and Thomas exchanged an uncomfortable look. The Bitterleaf boys were well known to them. They were a fixture in Dunwall, dutifully appearing shortly after various assassinations, accidents or outright bloodbaths – bagging up the dead with care, cleaning up the often still-warm gory remains with nary a complaint. There were many times when various Whalers were still on the scene high up on the rooftops when the Bitterleafs showed up and began their grim work on the streets below. No one was really sure how many Bitterleaf boys there were exactly, but they did know this – there was only one Bitterleaf girl and that was little Addie. She was almost always with her brothers, shuffling along behind them at their heels – watching mutely as they went about their morbid trade.

Most of the Whalers who shared Daud’s powers through the bond could, at will read basic patterns of thought and intent in a given person. Sometimes those readings came unwittingly depending on the situation. In Billie’s recollection these mind maps read much like a schematic overlaying a series of faint images. Sometimes they revealed information, as was the case for most of the Bitterleaf boys. She could sense any suspicion or lack thereof in them, which was helpful in deciding further planning that would help lead the trail firmly away from being caught. 

In Addie’s case, the few times her mind map floated within view of Billie’s perception the result was an uncomfortable crawling sensation at the complete _absence_ of pattern. Addie’s thoughts, such as they were – were vague, heavily blurred to the point of uselessness. The girl was not covering her thoughts; she simply didn’t have any in the usual sense of the word. People like Addie were an empty puzzle to Lurk. They were lacking in a dismal way that made Lurk tend to avoid interactions with them. Not that she feared them, necessarily but that she didn’t like to consider that not everyone had the ability to think or reason like she did. 

She had known kids like that coming up – they had been called ‘addled’ or ‘slow’, neither intelligent nor unintelligent – just _absent_ inside their own heads. Curled in a dark place in her mind where she didn’t care to visit, she could hear a ghost of her mother’s angry slurring voice shouting at her from the front stoop for all to hear after yet another manufactured infraction _girl, get your worthless ass back in this house and quit lurkin' around out there. Have you lost your mind? Are you addled or just plain stupid…_ and realized as she was thinking about this, that Thomas was hovering in the peripheral of her thoughts silently agreeing and thinking about similar interactions he had. 

Thomas cleared his throat, almost afraid to ask but did. “What about her, Daud?” He knew what Daud was going to say, but he knew it needed to be said aloud. 

“That’s how he left Mara, Thomas. When the Outsider took the bond, he didn’t just take her eyes. He took her _mind_ too. I felt Mara before she was born. I… I can’t explain it, but I _shared_ things with her and she with me. She was the reason I remembered everything. She gave me back everything the Actor had destroyed. She led me out of myself, Thomas. When Lily came back from wherever she had been with the Outsider, she came back with the child, but everything that made that child who she was had been taken away by the Outsider. Do you understand me? Her mind will never grow past where it is right now. She will never talk, never walk or learn to take care of herself. Lily doesn’t know this. Nor will she.” Daud gave a look around to the others that made it perfectly clear that this was immutable - not a fucking word about it had better leave this room. 

“I love this child, but I have been mourning her loss since the day she was born.” Daud held up his marked fist, clenching it tight and his mark glowed warmly in response. His voice was low and calm, but his anger was cold – a rime of ice packed around the tight core of his heart. “The bond was his to take. My daughter was not. He took my daughter’s life, so I intend to take his. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I know that I am. Once I do that, then and only then will I worry about closing the fucking door. Got it?” 

There was so much more to say, but Billie wisely skirted the topic and continued on with the discussion. “Got it. That still leaves us with the problem of the Eyeless and the Eight, and whatever splinter group that the ‘Overseer’ might belong to. Even if the Outsider is dead, and the door to the Void is shut, it will not stop them from continuing on. We need to get down there to Dunwall, and blow this up from the inside – cull their numbers. Daud, what is the chance that you would be able to get any information about them from the Outsider?” 

Daud seemed pleased that the discussion was taking a direction more to his liking, and answered readily. “I plan to get as much out of him as I can before I’m done with him. By the time I run out of questions, I’ll know everything that we need to know.” 

Billie nodded and continued. “Once we have that information, we can use it to set marks and take down the heads first, and then work our way down from there until there’s no one left that matters. Thomas, thoughts?” 

Thomas rubbed his hand down his face. “You keep saying ‘we’, Lurk. Are you volunteering _yourself_ to go to Dunwall? I’m not sure who else you intend to go. Daud is going to be taking care of his end of things, I’ll be taking care of things on this end and I’m pretty sure Cholly and Joplin aren’t planning a trip down there any time soon, am I correct gentlemen?” Cholly and Joplin nodded slowly, avoiding Billie’s eye. “There will be plenty of support, I’m sure and I know you can take care of yourself but…” 

Billie interrupted him. There would never be a good time for this, but it was as good of an opening as she was going to get. “I have to go. It won’t be easy because I’m a wanted criminal…” at this Thomas smiled his small sideways smile, shrewd as ever “aren’t we all, Lurk?” Billie just shook her head. “You don’t understand. There are some things I need to tell you about the coup, about what I did back then. Look, I helped Emily Kaldwin. You know that, but you need to know what happened… after. For my help to the Crown, I was offered a full pardon and 30,000 coin.” She tried not to notice the tense look between Thomas and Daud, but she couldn’t stop now. “There was only one condition.” At this Thomas buried his face in his hands and Daud’s eyes narrowed over a deepening frown. Billie met Daud’s eyes without flinching “All I had to do was lead them to you.” 

They all jumped with the sudden force of Thomas’s fists slamming down on the table. “Fuck! Again? Why, Billie?!” His face was distorted with equal parts grief, anger and fear. Any second, the basement would flood with Overseers, Corvo Attano would come down the stairs ready to deal deaths nearly twenty years overdue. Cholly and Joplin looked around and at each other, confused and fearful – unsure what to do. Daud stared back at Billie, his arms crossed over his chest and leaned back a little in the ladderback chair. “And did you?” 

“No. I … I took the money, and I ran.” 

There was silence for a beat or two, and Daud’s frown quivered, broke and spread into at first a smile and then a low chuckle. “That’s my Lurk.” Suddenly they were all laughing at once, the panic of the moment percolating through the laughter into relief. Thomas wiped his eyes, and one by one the hysteria calmed in them. Once the moment passed, Lurk continued her story. “There’s more – something I have to do there.” 

*** 

Billie’s story: Death to the Empress

I knew when Emily left the ‘Wale to take on Delilah that I should have left Dunwall at that very moment. I told you that I did and I had planned to but I didn’t. That night I told Emily who I was, and that I had participated in her mother’s assassination. I’m not sure what I expected, but she forgave me – or something like it. _a whisper in her mind, and a meaningful look from Daud ‘like father, like daughter’_. I think she already knew though. I had your old audiograph, Daud. That last one you made, I think. I found it back in '47. I had it locked in my cabin along with a few bonecharms. I let Emily pick my pocket that night and take my key, and she helped herself to what she found there. I figured the charms would help her against Delilah. She saw my mask, my letters, my recon photos and plans and I’m certain she listened to the audiograph. I needed for her to hear it. I don’t know what she thinks, if anything, about you Daud – she didn't mention it, but I wanted her to know that in the end, you tried. She had to have seen how much time and effort I had put into finding you, and how much you meant… mean to me. I didn’t want her to forgive you, or feel bad for hating you but I did want her to see the other side of the coin in that story. 

Emily left, taking the charms and I thought that would be the end of it. She said her goodbyes to Sokolov and to me, and I said mine to her. Later that night, I felt the moment that Delilah was gone. My bond with her was not like mine with you, Daud but it was there nonetheless – very faint. I found out later exactly what happened, and unlike last time – when Delilah disappeared this time, she was simply gone. Whatever infection I had left of her inside of me lifted in an instant. The air felt more clear than it had in a while, and I foolishly allowed myself to relax. 

Anton and I celebrated with a drink, and I helped the old man to his cabin to rest. Once I had him tucked in, I went back up on deck intending to get good and drunk and to see if I had any Sanjica still stashed away in the upper deck storage. I didn’t see or hear him coming. One second I’m trying to remember where I stashed that last carton of Sanjica and the next Corvo Attano had me down on the deck, nearly breaking my shoulder in the process before I could register that someone was there.

He was soaking wet, and wearing that fucking _mask_. I didn’t know then that he had lost his mark, and I wasn’t about to take chances so I did exactly as he suggested and brought the ‘Wale around into the small lock – no, it is a newer one that was installed next to the original one. That one is still there, yes. He let me go only long enough to talk to Anton – luckily he still felt a good deal for the old man, and allowed me to go to him. I woke Anton, whispered to him what had happened and that if I didn’t make it back - as soon as he was able he was to sell the ‘Wale and everything on it. He knew I meant anything pertaining to you, Daud. Yes, he knew who I was all along. We met when he caught me trying to rob his rooms down in Karnaca back in ’47. I had heard that he had quite a collection of items and information on you, Daud and I intended to do a little simple B and E to get it. That's where I found your audiograph. I had planned to find and leave with this collection, but ended up finding a friend who left with me and shared his collection willingly - but that’s a story for another time. That night the only thing Corvo took from the ‘Wale was the audiograph. 

I spent that first night in the Tower locked in a spare bedroom with no windows. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was treated well enough. Fed. Warm. I figured if I was in serious trouble, I’d be in Coldridge and not the Tower. The next day I was escorted up to the planning room. Emily, Corvo, and the captain of the Watch was there – Captain Cottings - Martha Cottings. On the planning table was nothing but the audiograph, a letter and an inkwell. The escort guards stood on either side of me when I sat down. Emily was cordial, but not especially warm. Corvo was cold, quiet. Captain Cottings was clearly at the ready. 

That was the first time I started to feel scared. Just the night before I had told the Empress that I helped kill her mother. At the time I told her, I felt only sadness and regret but now I sat there in front of Emily Kaldin and Corvo Attano realizing that I was probably looking at my writ of execution there in front of me on the table. They did not play the audiograph. I think they just wanted me to see that they _knew_. 

Emily didn’t mince words. She offered me my freedom, the chance to leave that room absolved of my crimes against the crown and I would be given 30,000 coin for my services to the Crown during the coup. All I had to do was sign the paper on the table that stated that I accepted these terms under the condition that I assist the Crown in the capture of the Assassin Daud. 

I signed the paper, and figured that would be it. I’d leave at the first slip and never look back. Unfortunately I hadn't read the fine print. I was immediately remanded into the custody of Captain Cottings until which time the Assassin Daud was found and secured. I hadn’t counted on that. 

Captain Cottings was more than happy to take me into her custody – she took every opportunity to dress me down, ‘accidently’ bump me into a stumble, and so on. She took me back with her to the Watch dormitory – yes, that’s pretty new. Nothing like the Watch slum shitholes they used to live in. I had my own room there, locked nice and tight from the _outside_. Cottings provided everything I asked for though, including a pen, stationery and so on. I wrote a letter or two, jotted down my thoughts at the time. 

The first few days were much the same. A lot of time spent in my ‘room’ with the occasional walk out and around with Captain Cottings pointing out places here and there that had Whaler presence some years back. They thought that I might know something about Zhukov but I wasn’t much help there, nor was I any help in finding any former Whalers. I had no idea where you were, Daud but I didn’t let on that was the case. I intended to stretch this out as long as I could until I found a way out. It happened sooner rather than later. 

I finally decided to ‘confess’ where you were, and asked Captain Cottings to escort me to the Tower so that I could share my findings with the Crown. We met, and I told them that you had taken up residence in Serkonos, in the Dockyard District and that I had managed to find you during the events of the coup. 

They thanked me, and called for the treasurer who arranged for the delivery of 30,000 coin to a point of my choice. I didn’t know if the ‘Wale was still in the lock, but I took my chances and requested it be delivered there. Emily stood to dismiss me, but Corvo leaned in and whispered something in her ear. She nodded, and then dismissed me – back into the custody of Captain Cottings. She gave the Captain the orders: travel to Serkonos, where Billie Lurk would escort her personally to Daud. 

I knew then what they intended – they intended to kill you right in front of me, Daud I’m sure of it. Captain Cottings bowed slightly and then we left. The Captain and I walked down away from the Tower toward the dormitory, where I was to gather my things and make ready for the journey. She would do the same. Once I got back there, I wrote a letter outlining the plan that I had in mind – there would be only a small window of time to deliver it. It had to be done before we set sail to Serkonos, but I knew that if I could find just the right moment – just the right opportunity I would be able to. 

Within an hour, I had what few things of mine ready to go and Cottings had changed from her ceremonial gear to her tactical gear – nothing like the old Watch uniforms you remember. It was streamlined, darker and much easier to maneuver around in. She was considerably more armed as well - no more of those swords or shitty pistols they used to use. Even the firearms were more streamlined, lighter and faster. We took off back toward the lock – the old one, and on the way there she seemed to warm up to me a little so I played along with the small talk. There was one moment though, where she clapped her hand on my back and smiled and when she did I felt something almost like a kinship with her but I still needed to make that delivery though, and time was running out. 

We got to the stairs leading up to the lock – yes, those very same ones, and that’s when I realized that the time had come. I waited until just the right moment when we were in sight of the guards gathered at the bottom of the stairs. I shouted ‘Martha, now!’ and when she turned here and there in confusion I delivered my letter. I Timsch’d her. Slid the letter right into her overcoat pocket – a letter that outlined a plan agreeing to work together to take the money and run. I did run, right to the ‘Wale. Martha Cottings was closer, so they stopped with her first – that letter fell out of her pocket, just like I intended and just before I ducked into the small lock I turned and watched them as they disarmed her and took her down. She didn’t even try to deny it. She just caved and went quietly. 

The ‘Wale was in the lock, and Anton had everything ready to go and so we did. Delilah’s Witches had culled the City Watch down to nearly nothing so there was no one to stop us. We set out down and then around the coast toward Potterstead, and that is where I left Anton and the ‘Wale. He wouldn’t take any of the coin but I did – as much as I could carry. It was a while before I saw Anton again. 

When he sold the ‘Wale some time later, I met him back at that same dockyard in Potterstead and got my take of the sale. It was a lot of coin, more than I had imagined anyone would pay for that waterlogged scrap heap, but someone did and that was all that mattered. Anton had enough to make his way in comfort and style to Tyvia, and I just started wandering from there. Looking for you, Daud. 

Look, I have to go back to Dunwall plan or no plan. I got some dispatches recently from Dunwall and from Serkonos and I’ve learned a few things about Martha Cottings. She’s been in Coldridge since the last time I saw her, and just this morning I found out that she is scheduled for execution three weeks from today. She doesn’t know – she thinks she is going to do her time and then leave. I can’t let her die like that - not because of me, and especially not knowing what I know now. I’m going to Coldridge and I’m going to break Martha Cottings out. I know it doesn’t have anything to do with any of this, but since I’m going to be in Dunwall anyway that is going to be the first thing I do when I get there. I’m telling you this because I’m going to need your help. 

***

The rest of meeting was spent re-arranging Thomas’s tidy plans into a series of more complicated missions. Cholly would send word out through his network to set up a sanctuary path for Lurk down in Dunwall, along with whatever supplies she might need along the way. She would be amongst certain Bottlers, Hatters and a few Roaring Boys – at one time all ‘Baleton Rats. They may have grown into opposite loyalties, but at the core – once a ‘Rat, always a ‘Rat and for Cholly, they would work together. 

Billie would be travelling throughout the mission under her real name, Bridget Larke. Daud chuckled a bit at that. “I suppose Wilhelmina has finally run its course, huh?” He knew she hated her given first name, and over the years had always found some way or other to irritate her with it in light moments. She hated it enough to murder under it, a shortened version of it anyway. For this mission heading back to her home city, there was no better name to hide under than a long-forgotten dead woman’s, as Wilhelmina Bridget Larke had been killed off the day she left her mother’s home for the last time some 30 years ago. 

Throughout the remainder of the meeting, Joplin sat quietly and when the less formal aspects of the meeting were coming to a close and a fresh bottle of Orbon was being passed around the table he finally spoke up. “I have something for you, Captain Foster. A gift.” and slid the small lens across the table.

Billie wasn’t sure what to make of the slightly milky-looking lens at first but when she picked it up, a thin crackling sensation spread from her fingertips throughout her body. It was very much like the sensation just before lightning strikes. _Her_ lightning. She held it up, studying it as she flipped it back and forth. Something was strange about the way it looked and studying it closely made her vision appear to double – it… no. It couldn’t be. She tilted her head again, and realized that her vision wasn’t doubled, it was _completed_. She could see through this lens quite clearly – with an eye that was no longer there. She brought the lens down and held it idly in her hands, looking down at it as she flipped it between her clockwork fingers. 

She brought her gaze up to Joplin and when their eyes met, she lost her words. She could see _into_ Joplin – not just read his patterns, but actually _see_ his thoughts as they were being processed. They looked like sparks riding along electric wires – thousands of sparks travelling in all directions on a countless number of tiny wires. She could feel distinctly unique thoughts and sensations - waves of his pain, feel his sleep-deprived nausea, and underneath the tremendous weight of his many dark thoughts – she could feel the simple anticipation of an excited boy, wanting to know if she liked her gift. Billie smiled then, and reached across the table and laid her hand over his. “I can’t tell you how much this means to me, Joplin. Thank you.” 

Thomas spoke up then. “Well, I suppose this is as good a time as any. Joplin, I have a gift for _you_.” Joplin’s reaction wasn’t much more than an arch of his brow over the top of the rim of his glasses, but Billie could see the patterns of his thoughts racing faster now. “Joplin, stay there a moment, I’ll be right back.”

Though Joplin was still quiet and melancholic, the mood of the room otherwise had lightened considerably. Daud had leaned in toward Billie to light her cigarette and his own, and the two of them were talking about someone named Lizzy and the finer points of breaking someone out of prison without being killed. Cholly was walking around the basement, looking at the various things down there – apparently sizing up the space for something. Joplin would otherwise be curious, but he was just so damned tired and terrified of falling asleep again to care what it was Cholly was planning. He wanted to leave but decided he would stay out of respect for Thomas. He liked Thomas - he seemed to really care about his work and his ideas, and moreover encouraged them. He wondered if this had something to do with fitting the basement out with the lab, and before he could begin creating his own plan for the layout Thomas came down the steps of the basement carrying a box. He was clearly excited, and the excitement on his face perked Joplin up some.

“I cannot _believe_ I was able to find this, Joplin – but thanks to some incredibly resourceful contacts I have managed to get my hands on a few things that might be of some interest to you while we are getting the lab together. Yes! The equipment came in and all we have to do now it build it!” 

He sat the box down in front of Joplin, who eagerly grabbed the first thing off the top – a sheaf of papers tied tidily with twine, and a large plainly bound leather journal wrapped around and tied with a worn leather tether. Billie and Daud turned their attention to Joplin and Cholly joined them at the table. Joplin pulled at the twine and the bundle of papers fanned out, but Joplin had already turned his attention to the journal. He thumbed through the first few pages, and then skipped through his face slowly draining to a fishbelly paleness as he read the thin scratchy writing. The others watched as Joplin lowered the journal and looked down at the scattered papers. One caught his attention and in a daze he plucked it out, unfolding it and looking in wonder at what was printed there.

Within seconds, Joplin broke out of his daze, dropped the paper and stood abruptly, knocking his chair backward where it hit the floor with a sharp crack. He was trembling with rage, and before any of them could react Joplin threw the journal as hard as he could against the door of Daud’s small lab where it hit and landed like some wounded thing, splayed open and limp. Billie rose quickly and went to Joplin but before she could speak the boy’s face cracked open past the pale anger and collapsed into grief as he sank to his knees sobbing. Thomas went pale himself, sure that Joplin had somehow managed to turn to just the wrong page in the journal at the wrong moment. Daud sat at the table looking at the paper that Joplin had dropped. It was a piece of an old broadsheet that had been torn out and folded – an article from 1838 on the cure for the plague, and there at the top was an old silvergraph, or what had passed for such until Jindosh had perfected the technology in ’41. It was Piero Joplin, and not a particularly flattering image of him. He looked characteristically uncomfortable – his face frozen in a surprised owlish gawp at the moment the image had been captured. The resemblance was startling. 

Daud folded the article back in half and slid it back into the stack of papers and joined Billie, Thomas and Cholly as they attempted to comfort Joplin. At first the boy wouldn’t – or perhaps _couldn’t_ speak, but when he did what he had to say surprised all of them. 

Joplin hadn’t planned on telling anyone about his dreams, not then and not ever but his words betrayed him and every single disturbing image came bubbling out haphazardly. He talked and talked, feeling an unexpected relief at the purging of his painful thoughts. He told them about the dreams of the metal men army, the man with a metal skeleton and the many identical women with hair made out of fire, and the woman with metal insides who puked up giant living roaches at will. He talked about the night before being in some strange old-fashioned version of Baleton, how he had gone to the castle ruins only to find the castle intact and how he had somehow managed to make Billie’s lens from _inside his dream_ in some kind of strange lab under the castle. When he got to the part about how he saw a young man down there in the lab who looked like an old-fashioned version himself – a version with black eyes, his racing words began to slow until they trickled down into nothing. Joplin fell silent, but Billie, Daud and Thomas exchanged silent rapid fire discussion _the Outsider? Was that Piero Joplin in the Void? Why did he have black eyes? What is happening here? The journal, Daud – it’s all in there. Joplin must have seen... What! What’s in there? Billie, not now. Later._

They quieted their thoughts and watched along with Cholly as Joplin calculated and figured inside his head, making connections and while Billie didn’t want to pry into the boy’s thoughts she found herself watching those racing sparks flying along those many wires inside of his mind. She felt ill at what she saw and felt there – no, it couldn’t possibly be… _how? Why would he think such a thing? How was such a thing even possible?!_

Billie backed out of his thoughts and blocked them as best as she could, laying what she hoped was a comforting hand on the boy’s back. He was going to need all the help he could get now – all the comfort that was available to him.

Joplin stood then, wiping his face and nose hard with his sleeve and then wiping clean his thick lenses as his breathing calmed and slowed and the tear-blotches faded back into the paleness of his cheeks. He looked calmly at Billie, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose and taking a deep breath. His grief had passed as suddenly as it had come on, and his face was set in a clinical determination. “We don’t have much time, Captain Foster. I suspect you will be leaving for Dunwall sooner rather than later, and you’re going to need some _real_ gear.”

**Author's Note:**

> My goal was to write Daud to life. I wanted to give him a life after Dunwall, a chance to cobble a life out of the bits of bones left from his life as the Assassin. I wanted him to be the guy who reminds you of someone you know, a man who has quirks and habits for better or worse, a person you can hear, touch, smell. A man who thinks, frets, worries, takes a leak, buys groceries - just a regular guy who once upon a time killed one empress and led another to the crown. I wanted him to embrace and accept who he is, always was - throw off the weight of the world from his back and redeem himself through the mundane rhythms of everyday life. He does, and it guides him through his actions when he is forced to take up the Knife once again. Does he seem real? There's a few more layers to him that I haven't uncovered yet, but can you see him in your mind? That guy who reminds you of someone you might know?
> 
> This entire series (and in particular the last scene between Daud and the Outsider in the final chapter) was inspired largely by this song (and imagery in the video) The Killing Moon by Echo and the Bunnymen:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWz0JC7afNQ


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